


this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name

by Cinaed



Category: Captain America (2011), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Espionage, F/F, F/M, Jossed, Red Room, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:12:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinaed/pseuds/Cinaed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some of Natasha’s memories are true, some are false, but throughout all of them runs one thread of remembrance: a cool metal hand gentle upon her back, tender against her cheek, tight around her throat; an assassin with a crooked smile and eyes like winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: faith is both the prison and the open hand

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from “Wishbone” by Richard Siken. Each chapter title is from a different song by Vienna Teng, as each epigraph is from poems from Siken's collection called "Crush." 
> 
> This story uses the character backgrounds for Natasha and James provided by both "Captain America" and "The Avengers," as well as a few things from the current Winter Soldier comics. Anything else is either taken from stuff I found on various sites about the two characters or from my own imagination. 
> 
> Thanks go out to deathmallow and catlinyemaker for being awesome and beta-reading this monster for me. 
> 
> For some lovely artwork for this story, see [**this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name [fanart]**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/497086) (0 words) by inkspire. The artwork is lovely and deserves kudos of its own!
> 
> On Tumblr, the amazing vyallalala is doing a series of artwork related to this story. Check them out here: [**The Bullet Project**](http://vylla-art.tumblr.com/tagged/Bullet-Project)
> 
> A Russian translation by Sillvera is available [**here**](http://ficbook.net/readfic/937375).
> 
> For those interested, I also created a fanmix for this story: [**we shift each other’s bodies to accept the bullet**](http://cinaed.tumblr.com/post/32566366032/we-shift-each-others-bodies-to-accept-the-bullet).
> 
> If you are looking for triggers more specific than graphic violence, I have put those at the end of the story.

 

[Try explaining a life bundled with episodes of this— 

swallowing mud, swallowing glass, the smell of blood 

on the first four knuckles.]

* * *

 

 

One of her clearest memories was her first kill. 

She remembered the way the target had breathed out a warm, damp puff of air against her shoulder as she’d slid the needle into a spot concealed by his thick beard. He’d fallen back against the pillows like a marionette whose strings had been cut; she remembered pressing her hands over his mouth to muffle the sound as he choked. 

Most of all, she remembered his expression of slack surprise, his dead eyes holding a fading look of doubt, as though he hadn’t quite believed what was happening even as he’d felt his throat constrict from the poison. 

“It isn’t likely that particular memory was implanted,” she told the two men sitting across from her. The assurance was mostly for the interrogator’s benefit. The SHIELD psychologist-- an ashen man who twitched when she so much as looked his way-- might have been interested in the idea of false memories, but it was the interrogator who asked the important questions and upon whom she directed her focus. “Some operatives had that type of memory implanted before their first mission.”

“Why?” asked the psychologist.

The handcuffs, long since warmed by contact with her skin, dug into her wrists when she leaned back in her chair; it was a momentary pinch of discomfort compared to the protest her still-healing ribs made at the gesture. She took in a shallow breath, keeping the pain off her face. 

“I don’t know. I suppose the Red Room thought it easier to kill the second time than the first,” she said. 

“Is it?” 

She allowed herself a small smile. Strange that a man who worked for SHIELD would ask such a naïve question. The psychologist’s pinky finger twitched. “Killing is usually easy,” she said. “The hard part is afterwards.” 

The psychologist’s eyes narrowed; curiosity briefly replaced nervousness. She wondered what he was thinking, if he’d taken her words to mean that she continually laid awake at night tormented by the faces of everyone she killed. (She doesn’t. She can’t. If she did, she’d never sleep again.) 

The interrogator shifted in his seat, drawing her attention once more. He looked at her for a long moment. His eyes were a pale hazel and, somewhat surprisingly, held no false kindness or sympathy, only guarded interest. He reminded her a little of Barton’s handler. “You said that your first kill is one of your clearest memories. What are the others?” 

She didn’t allow her expression to change, but something in her eyes made sweat break out on the psychologist’s forehead. 

“I remember the Winter Soldier.” 

The psychologist almost fell off his chair. 

Even the interrogator’s blank expression cracked, surprise widening his eyes before interest narrowed them. He didn’t lean forward in his chair, but there was a slight tension in his shoulders that suggested he wanted to do precisely that. When he spoke, he kept his voice low and even. “The Winter Soldier. We’d believed that he was a boogey-man.” At her raised eyebrow he added, “A story the Russians spread to frighten us.”  

She almost laughed at that, imagining Western operatives arguing over whether or not the Winter Soldier was real. “The Winter Soldier was no story.” 

“What can you tell us about him?” 

“What do you want to know about him?” she asked slowly.

She was already regretting her honesty, despite Barton’s earlier plea to make some progress so that he could actually talk to her without bars and shackles getting in the way. Should she barter now, exchanging memories for privileges? She wondered, without bitterness, which memory would allow her to go outside and enjoy the sunlight for the first time in over a week. 

“As near as we can tell, if all the stories about him are true, the Winter Soldier is probably the world’s most successful assassin,” the interrogator said, a dry note creeping into his voice. “Our records indicate he worked mostly from the early fifties to just before the Berlin Wall fell, though there have been a few other assassinations in the past decade that people have tried to link to him. We would consider any and all information you have about him as a clear sign of cooperation.” He paused. “And perhaps some gratitude that we had Professor Xavier strip your mind of any triggers.” 

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. It was good to know that there weren’t any triggers lurking in her mind to make her put a bullet in her own head or go on a messy rampage, but she wasn’t about to thank them for it. SHIELD had done it as an act of self-preservation. 

“I can tell you what I know of him, but there’s only one detail that I believe important.”

“And what detail is that?” the interrogator asked. 

She looked past his shoulder, towards the one-way mirror beyond which Directory Fury was doubtlessly watching the interrogation. When she answered the question, she directed her words to him. 

“He’s dead.” 

“Dead?” the interrogator and the psychologist said together.  

“How do you know he’s dead?” the interrogator said. A hint of disbelief darkened his eyes as he leaned forward. “Our records indicate that if he existed, he is still working, just very rarely.”

She took a moment to answer. Her mouth felt dry, suddenly, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. She didn’t lick her lips or betray any discomfort; instead she pressed her lips together in a tight-lipped smile that made the psychologist do a full-body twitch. 

“Your records are wrong.”

“How do you know?” the interrogator asked. 

“I’m the one who killed him.” 

There was a moment of silence. Then the door to the interrogation room opened. 

Fury stepped inside, his expression unreadable as both the psychologist and the interrogator scrambled to their feet and saluted him. He motioned for them to sit, and then nodded towards her. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.” It wasn't a question, but as commands went, it was milder than she’d expected from the director of SHIELD. 

She let one corner of her mouth curl upwards. “It may take a while in the telling.” She wouldn’t tell them the whole truth, of course -- there were things that weren’t necessary for them to know, and there were things that she didn’t want them to know -- but she’d tell them enough to get out of her cage. 

“I don’t know about you, but I have all the time in the world,” Fury drawled. He clasped his hands behind his back and stared at her with his one good eye, clearly waiting for her to start. 

So she did. 


	2. of all the seasons, winter befriends me

 

[I’ll be your 

slaughterhouse, your killing floor,  your morgue 

and final resting.]

* * *

 

Currently, there were ten boys and seven other girls in the academy with her.

There used to be more. The beds in the girls’ dormitory numbered twelve. She didn’t let herself think about it. She wasn’t going to be one of the disappearances in the middle of the night. 

She didn’t know her exact age -- birthdays were not considered important in the program -- but she was old enough that her body had begun to change, her hips widening, her breasts itching as they got larger, her bones aching as she grew and grew and grew. 

All eighteen of them were gathered together for this particular lesson, which was unusual. Usually the boys and girls were kept separate. She wondered what the lesson would be. She wondered if she was supposed to notice the man standing in the shadows of the training room, watching, or if she was supposed to pretend not to see him. 

After a moment of consideration, she positioned herself in the line so that she could keep an eye on that shadowed corner.  

As soon as the group was organized, Comrade Orlov snapped his fingers. He towered over the group, his dark eyes narrowed as he studied them. His gaze never rested more than a second on any of them, but after a moment he nodded to himself, his thick brown mustache quivering at the gesture. “You two,” he said, pointing at her and then the tallest boy, the one who stared at her when her shirt clung to her curves after training. “Come here.”

They stepped forward obediently. 

When Orlov continued, he did so in a matter-of-fact tone, his words directed to the entire room. “You have been given a rare opportunity to serve your homeland, comrades. You are becoming Russia’s eyes and ears and hands. You will fight for her. You will bleed for her. Some of you may even have the privilege of dying for her.” He paused, and then bellowed, “What is your duty to the homeland?”

“To serve our homeland, to be her eyes and ears and hands,” the group chorused obediently. It was a familiar mantra.  

Orlov stepped forward and placed one warm, sweaty hand on her shoulder, his other hand on the boy’s. He looked at them both for a long moment. “I am told you two have…potential. You both have completed multiple successful surveillance missions.”  

His words were a statement, not a question, and they both knew better than to respond. 

One corner of Orlov’s mouth puckered, but she couldn’t tell if he was repressing a smile or a frown. “Your homeland has need of you. This will not be an intelligence mission. This will be more dangerous. Are you ready to be her hands?” 

She didn’t let her reaction show on her face even as her back muscles tightened in anticipation and something like excitement churned her stomach. From the corner of her eye, she saw a muscle jump in the boy’s jaw.

“Yes, comrade,” they said, the boy a half-second behind her. 

“I only need one of you for this mission,” Orlov said. He stepped away. “Win, and prove yourself worthy of your homeland.” 

The boy’s fist swung, striking empty air; she’d started moving as Orlov had said ‘one.’ She lashed out, her foot catching him in the vulnerable softness of his belly. He buckled, his breath escaping him in one startled rush, but he managed to turn the fall into a roll out of her reach.  

She darted after him, her fist aiming for his throat. He dodged, grabbed her wrist, and threw her over his shoulder. 

This time it was her turn to change a fall into a roll. Her heart pounded in her ears. It was almost enough to drown out the sound of his feet thumping against the floor as he rushed at her. Almost, but not quite, and she dove under his wild charge, sliding under his legs and twisting to grab his left ankle and yank him off his feet. He landed hard and wrong; she heard something snap as he yelped in pain. 

Before he could rise, she put him into a headlock, tight enough that his eyes rolled frantically and he gagged. He lashed out, trying to gouge her eyes, to break her hold, but she only tightened her grip until he choked for air. Tears streamed down his face as she didn’t let up the pressure. 

The boy continued to choke, and still Orlov said nothing. 

She watched the boy’s lips begin to turn blue, and said, keeping her voice toneless, her arm steady and unwavering around the boy’s throat, “Comrade Orlov, the order was to fight. Has the order changed to kill?” 

There were another few seconds in which she watched the boy’s fingers twitch wildly. Then Orlov said, “No. Release him.” 

She let him fall. Then she stood. She saluted Orlov once she was on her feet. 

“Leave,” Orlov said, looking at the other boys and girls. He didn’t glance at the boy, who continued to gasp and sob on the ground until one of the other girls hauled him upright and helped him limp from the room. 

She wondered if the boy would still be here tomorrow, or if he would leave behind another empty bed, a warning that there was no tolerance for failure. She pushed the dangerous thought away and stood there, hands at her sides. 

During all of this, the man in the shadows hadn’t made a sound or even moved. 

“You will be dealing with a traitor,” Orlov told her once the door was shut behind the last of the girls. “He thinks his crimes have gone unnoticed, and that even if we did discover them, he is too useful to be punished. You will correct this misapprehension. Permanently.” 

Her breath caught in her throat for a second. She had to swallow before she could respond, to ensure that her voice was still without inflection. “Yes, comrade.”

Orlov turned towards the shadowed corner, and the man finally stepped forward. His face was an unfamiliar one, his age indeterminate but she estimated that he was perhaps eight or ten years older than she. His hair was dark, his eyes and skin pale, and he held himself like a soldier, his reserved gaze focused upon Orlov as he stood at parade-rest. 

To her surprise, Orlov didn’t salute the man or even introduce him. Instead, Orlov said, “He will explain your mission in further detail.” When she looked at him, Orlov was wearing an expression she didn’t recognize, the muscles tight in his jaw and a particular pallor to his features. Sweat gleamed on his forehead. 

He was, she realized, frightened. 

“Yes, comrade,” she repeated, keeping the realization off her face, and then mirrored the stranger’s stance, her hands behind her, as Orlov left and shut the door firmly after him. 

The stranger barely looked at her. “I am told you have shown some skill at stealth as well,” he said.  

There was a pause, and with another flicker of surprise she didn’t let show on her face, she realized that he was waiting for her response. “I do my best for Russia, comrade,” she said at last, uncertain what he wanted from her. There was no familiar mantra to fall back upon, not here. 

“And are you prepared for all that entails? Orlov didn’t ask if you’d be ready to kill a man, which is what you’ll be doing,” he said.

She sucked in a quick, surprised breath at his directness before she realized her body had betrayed her. She lifted her chin and met his eyes. “Comrade Orlov said that would be the mission, comrade,” she said. 

The lines at the corners of his eyes were more pronounced now, almost like he was amused. “No, he didn’t,” he said. “Orlov used a more delicate euphemism. Repeat what he said, word for word.” The last sentence was said sharply, a sudden command.  

She didn’t hesitate. “I will be dealing with a traitor. He thinks his crimes have gone unnoticed, and that even if we did discover them, that he is too useful to Russia to be punished. I will correct this misapprehension. Permanently.” 

The crease was still there. “And happily?”

The stranger stepped closer to her. She instinctively lowered her gaze to the ground, clasping her hands still tighter behind her. “Happily, gladly, comrade. I can fulfill the mission,” she said. “I will be our homeland’s eyes and ears and--”

His gloved hand touched her chin and tilted her face upward so that she was forced to meet his eyes. This close, she saw that his irises were a pale shade of blue. He smiled. The warmth of the smile didn’t reach his eyes, but it was not an unkind gesture, nor, she thought, an entirely false one. 

“No need for that mantra. I believe you,” he said. 

Then his gloved hand dropped to her throat, his fingers tightening around her throat. 

She lashed out instinctively, a hard punch to the man’s throat that made him rock backwards, a dark flush coloring his cheeks as he gasped for air. She darted out of his reach, eyeing him warily, but he made a sound that seemed almost like laughter. 

“I will be honest with you,” he said. “I’ve wanted to test your skills since you spotted me in the corner and kept me in your line of sight, even during most of your fight. You are impressive.” 

She found herself smiling, both out of pride and eagerness. This man moved like a fighter, his stance an unfamiliar, exciting style. “It is your turn to impress _me_ , comrade,” she said, and sprang at him. 

The man had height and muscle, but she was faster, darting out of his reach time and time again before he could use those strengths against her. His blows, when they landed, were powerful. One lucky blow from his left hand left her licking the corner of her mouth and tasting blood.

She aimed a kick at his knee, unsurprised when he caught her leg with both hands. For a moment the fight paused as they stared at each other. They both breathed hard. Sweat trickled down her forehead, and his face was flushed a deep red. 

He tightened his grip on her ankle, hard enough that the bones grinded against each other and she had to repress a wince. “I could break your ankle,” he said, almost conversationally. 

“You won’t,” she said, and watched him look amused. 

“I suppose Orlov would be irritated if I break you,” he said. His left hand tightened further, sending agony shooting up her leg. 

She didn’t let the pain contort her expression or enter her voice as she repeated, “You won’t.” She used him as a sounding board, her free foot striking his unprotected groin; he released her with a quiet grunt of surprise.

She back-flipped out of his reach and watched him warily. 

The man hadn’t sunk to the floor like the boys had when she’d used that move against them; his expression had turned waxen and his knees had started to buckle, but he still stood. He even managed a half-smile, sickly though it was. 

“Orlov mentioned you prefer unconventional methods of taking down your opponents,” he said. 

“Any means necessary, comrade,” she said. 

His smile broadened at that, turned almost approving. “Any means necessary,” he agreed, and then stripped off his gloves. 

Light caught on the metal and made the prosthetic hand shine. 

She rocked back on her heels, her hand snapping up in an instinctive salute. “Comrade!” she said, and wasn’t ashamed at the awe that colored her voice. Even in the Red Room, where they were only told what was strictly necessary, there were still rumors of the Winter Soldier, Russia’s finest assassin. 

No one seemed to know where he had come from. Some thought he was like the others being trained, an orphan put to a great purpose who had turned out to have an aptitude for killing. Others thought he was a soldier who had gone willingly into Doctor Rodchenko’s chambers. There, he’d been broken down into an empty vessel for Rodchenko to use so that the Winter Soldier would be a body and mind concerned only with the death of the homeland’s enemies. 

The Winter Soldier did his not-smile again, the corners of his eyes creasing ever so slightly. She thought, almost absently, that no man who thought of only of killing could smile like that. 

To her quiet horror, her hand, still held in the salute, began to shake. She dropped her hand to her side and clenched both hands into fists. He may have stripped off his gloves, but he was still standing in a fighting stance. Any moment he was going to take advantage of her astonishment and attack. 

Her traitorous hands continued to shake. He was going to see her trembling, she knew. He was going to see how she was falling apart over the realization that she had fought and held her own against the Winter Soldier, and then he would recognize that she wasn’t ready for a mission. She would return to the dormitory and be punished as the boy was doubtlessly being punished. 

“Adrenaline,” he said.

She blinked and resisted the urge to quietly swear. If he’d wished, he could have had her on the ground during her moment of inattention. She eyed him warily. “Comrade?”

“You are shaking because of the adrenaline from the fights,” he said calmly. “You’ll experience something similar after you’ve killed Kaverin. Keep breathing, slow and steady, and the tremors will pass.” 

“I-- thank you, comrade,” she said, licking dry lips. 

He turned on heel and began walking away. “Come along, Natalia, and let me tell you more about Kaverin and how you will kill him.”

She stared at his back. She wasn’t certain what to be more surprised about, that he had stopped the fight so abruptly or that he had called her--

“Natalia?” She rolled it around on her tongue, savoring it. 

He looked over his shoulder at her, one eyebrow rising. “That _is_ your name, isn’t it?” he said. 

“Yes, comrade,” she said slowly, guardedly.  

Names were a delicate matter here in the Red Room. The Red Room took your name away when you entered the program and returned it once you’d proven your worth. She knew her name, of course, had whispered it into her pillow more than once just to hear it said aloud, but no one had called her by name since….well.  

She added, still cautious as she fell into place beside him just out of reach of his metal arm, “Perhaps Comrade Orlov didn’t tell you, but I have not earned--”

“He said nothing of your name. I looked at your records myself.” The Winter Soldier frowned, curiosity temporarily softening the lines of his face. “What does Orlov call you all during training, then?” 

She shrugged. “He points, comrade.” 

“He points,” the Winter Soldier echoed, and actually chuckled. It was a soft, slightly hoarse sound, as though he had not laughed in some time. “Well, I think it will be easier if I call you by name, Natalia.”

“Yes, comrade,” Natalia said. She didn’t let herself think about how much she wanted him to say her name a third time, or a fourth. She hesitated a moment. “And what should I call you, comrade?” 

His expression didn’t change, but she found herself instinctively adjusting her stance, ready to step even further away from him. “Winter Soldier will do.”

“Yes, Winter Soldier,” Natalia said, and followed him from the room. 

 

* * *

 

He was waiting for her outside the hotel after she had killed Kaverin. The Winter Soldier wore scuffed, muddy boots and a threadbare factory uniform that was a size too large for his lean frame. 

For a second, their eyes met and held, passing between them a silent message of ‘mission accomplished’ and ‘well done.’ Then his expression transformed, shifting from neutrality to good-natured exasperation. 

“I’ve been waiting forever, Elya,” he exclaimed. He reached out, tugging at her dyed-blonde hair the way she thought an older brother might. Both hands were gloved. “Mother was worried.”

She tossed her hair and giggled, a young girl’s carefree laugh practiced with Comrade Kozlova for countless hours until it sounded natural. “I was just visiting Anya,” she said, the name their spoken signal of success, and then caught his hand in hers, tugging him away from the hotel. “Come, I want to tell Mother about what Anya’s brother’s wife said….”

They were halfway down the street by the time shocked yells erupted from within the hotel. Neither Natalia nor the Winter Soldier looked back. 

“Any complications?” he murmured in her ear. 

“None,” she said. “It was….” She hesitated and then finally gave voice to her troubled thoughts. “It was easy.” 

“Killing is usually easy,” the Winter Soldier said. There was still a warm smile on his lips, but his eyes were distant. “The hard part is afterwards.”

Natalia looked at him curiously. “Do you…,” she began, and then paused. Would he take offense if she asked him if he regretted having to kill, even for Russia? “Do you remember the first person you killed?” _Does it still haunt you? Will Kaverin’s expression haunt me?_ She didn’t think it would, kept waiting for something, some reaction to the fact that she had watched a man die by her hand only a few minutes earlier.

The reaction seemed slow in coming. She wondered if it would come at all. 

The Winter Soldier’s stride didn’t falter, but something flashed across his face, a grimace that lasted for all of a second and then was gone. “No.” Strange, how a single syllable could hold so much warning and rebuke. 

“Forgive me,” she said immediately. The fixed smile upon her face was beginning to ache. “It is none of my business.” 

The Winter Soldier took one more step, then another. “I regret the necessity,” he said. After a moment she realized he was answering her unasked question. “We lost so many in the war. It is a waste to lose more because of greed, cowardice, or stupidity.” 

“ _He_ was stupid,” she said, ducking her head to flash the Winter Soldier a slight frown. Kaverin had been weak, a fool with a predilection for girls and money; he hadn’t understood what was happening even after she’d injected him and the poison had started to work. 

“Yes.” 

They continued the walk in silence. Natalia took a few slow, deep breaths, enjoying the air’s crispness, the bite of cold on her cheeks. When she glanced over at the Winter Soldier, she found he wore an odd expression. If she hadn’t known better, she would have identified the look as one of regret. 

“Comrade?” she asked.

He shook his head, as though to clear his mind. “It’s nothing,” he said, but his gaze slid away from hers and she knew he was lying, and lying badly.

“Comrade,” she repeated. This time she didn’t use any inflection in the words. 

He pressed his lips together, anger narrowing his eyes. Was he angry at her, she wondered, or himself? “You looked like any other girl on the streets of Leningrad,” he said. 

“Oh,” Natalia said slowly. That didn’t explain the fury tightening his shoulders and darkening his expression. Perhaps he was irritated that she had gone too deeply into her cover as Elya? “I--”

They were a block away from the Department X headquarters. Without warning, the Winter Soldier caught her by her scarf and dragged her into the nearest alley. 

She didn’t try to struggle out of his grip, which would have only earned her a choking by her own scarf, but she did punch him hard in his kidneys, enjoying the grunt of pain she elicited. “What are you doing,” she said, keeping her voice low and letting her displeasure show only in her narrowed eyes. 

“They will call it a reward,” he said, ignoring her question. His pale eyes caught hers and held them, a strange light burning in them. “They will call it a reward, and to them, it is. It is the greatest gift they will ever give you, and, Natalia Romanova, it will be terrible. It will be hell, it will be agony, it will be as though they are pouring acid in your veins, as though they are burning you alive. And then? The pain will get worse.” 

Her tongue felt thick and awkward in her mouth. She swallowed. “Comrade-- Winter Soldier--”

He continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “It will be agony, but if you survive, you will truly be one of Russia’s greatest tools. I can promise you far better missions than killing an old fool like Alexi Kaverin, missions that will truly aid our homeland. You will have your pick of them.” 

_If I survive_? The craven question caught in her throat. Instead, she found herself lowering her gaze to the grimy snow beneath their feet and asking, “Why are you telling me this, Comrade?”

He was silent for a moment. “Because it _should_ be a reward,” he said at last. “And perhaps if you know what you have to look forward to afterwards you can have something to focus on besides the pain.” 

Natalia didn’t know what to make of that. The Winter Soldier was an enigma to her, this man with the ability to laugh with honest amusement one moment and in the next strangle a condemned man to death simply to show her how delicate a person’s throat was, this man who looked at Orlov with contempt and yet once broke a fellow operative’s arm for questioning Orlov’s orders, this man who seemed to be breaking the rules to offer her some semblance of comfort.

She was aware of his gaze upon her, and after a moment she lifted her chin and met his eyes. For a second, she let all her masks fall, smiling in a way that made unused muscles twinge, a thank-you that she would not, could not put a voice to. 

“Better missions, comrade?” she asked. 

He stepped away from her, a small smirk curling his lips. The anger was gone so swiftly that she wondered if this too had been a test, his attempt at comfort a ruse to gauge her true feelings. Metal fingers released her scarf and reached out to pat her head as though she were a dog who’d just performed a successful trick. 

“Better missions,” he assured her. “If you survive, ask Orlov about Project Chessmen. Now, come along.” 

He strolled from the alley at a slow, unhurried pace, and Natalia trailed after, excitement churning her stomach even as a quiet voice in the back of her head whispered mockingly, _if you survive, if you survive, if you survive_ ….

 

* * *

 

The serum felt like poison burning its way through her veins, shredding her muscles, cracking her bones. 

Natalia screamed until she had no voice, vomited until there was nothing left in her but dry heaving, wept until she’d used up all her tears. She knew she was slipping in and out of consciousness by the way the volume of the voices around her seemed to flicker in and out like a malfunctioning radio. 

Agony was a constant companion, turning even the insides of her eyelids scarlet as she writhed on the bed. They restrained her; she broke free. They restrained her again; this time she rose from the bed and broke the arm of one of the nurses as she shrieked, then the neck of a guard when he drew a gun on her. It was as easy as Kavelin; the guard’s neck broke with one quick gesture and he dropped like a stone.  

A familiar metal arm pressed against her throat, pushing her back upon the bed. Through the roaring in her ears, she heard a voice snarl, “Stay still or I’ll break _your_ neck and see how quickly the serum heals you.” The Winter Soldier’s voice was both familiar and not, distorted by an accent she thought might be German. Quieter, he added, “This will end sooner if you don’t tear out the damn tubes, Romanova. Stay still and it’ll be over soon.”

She obeyed the order even as she burned from the inside out. She bit her lips until they bled, the taste of copper hot and thick on her tongue, the smallest of distractions from the overwhelming agony. 

After some time, she realized the pain was ebbing to a deep ache. 

Natalia opened her eyes. 

The Winter Soldier stood guard, his arms at his side. His clothing was odd, too, fabric she didn’t recognize. He must be going outside the country. When she looked at him, he shifted in place, blinking for a moment as though he were coming out of a trance. 

“Is the pain manageable now? You can control yourself?” he asked, tone brusque, still with that strange accent. When she managed a nod of assent, he gave her a sharp nod in return and turned on heel. “Orlov, I think you can handle her now on your own,” he snapped, letting some of his disgust color his voice. “If you no longer need me, I will go finish the preparations for my actual mission.” 

“Yes, thank you,” she heard Orlov say in an almost humble voice. 

Then Orlov leaned over her bed, a too-wide smile on his face as he blocked her view of the rest of the room. “Congratulations, Natalia Romanova,” he said, grabbing her right hand and shaking it heartily. “How do you feel?” 

She looked at him for a moment, seeing the poorly concealed fear in his eyes. He was terrified of her, she realized, of her and the Winter Soldier and all the known and unknown ways the serum had transformed them. She studied herself. Already the cuts and abrasions on her hands, the split knuckles and bruises earned from trying to escape, were beginning to mend. 

Natalia licked at the corner of her mouth, her lips already healed but still tasting faintly of blood. It took a few attempts to get her abused throat to cooperate enough for speech. 

“I am fine. Tell me about Operation Chessmen,” she whispered.

Orlov blanched. “O-Operation Chessmen?”

“Operation Chessmen,” she repeated, more firmly. 

Orlov dropped her hand and took a step back from the bed. “You have only just been given the serum, we have done no tests, I do not know if--”

Natalia found herself smiling without quite meaning to. Orlov, impossibly, turned paler. “Tell me about Operation Chessmen, Comrade Orlov,” she said, lowering her voice and looking up at him from behind her lashes. It was a look she had practiced with Comrade Kozlova many times, a look she’d tested upon Kaverin with great success right before she’d used the needle. 

Despite the fact that she was drenched with sweat and doubtlessly had vomit on her clothes, the look still seemed to work. Orlov cleared his throat, color returning to his face in unsightly blotches. “Very well. Operation Chessmen is--” 

Natalia gave Orlov just enough attention to memorize the conversation and be able to recall Orlov’s words in exact detail later. Once she was certain that Orlov was absorbed in the sound of his own voice she looked past him. 

The Winter Soldier was nowhere in sight. 

She didn’t press a hand to her throat where he had pinned her to the bed, or touch the spot on her ear his mouth had brushed as he’d whispered to her. She didn’t wonder at his strange acts of brutal kindness. She didn’t ask Orlov where the Winter Soldier was going. 

Instead she kept her hands in her lap and listened as Orlov said, “There is a belief, Romanova, among the great minds of our country, that one person in the right place at the right time can change the course of history, can topple nations….”


	3. for you I’d burn the length and breadth of sky

 

[Names like pain cries, names

like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented,

names forbidden or overused.] 

 

* * *

 

 

Natalia emerged from the theater, where she had held the hand of a much older man under the cover of darkness and pressed a poisoned kiss to his lips. The man would be dead by the morning; the poison would mimic many of the symptoms of a heart attack. The target was already hurrying home to his wife, oblivious to his fate. 

“Alina,” someone called, and she turned instinctively at the sound of her alias, searching for a face to match the voice. 

Pale eyes gleamed at her as the Winter Soldier caught her bare hand in his gloved ones and lifted it to his mouth for a kiss. His lips were warm against her knuckles. He had not changed much in the four months since they’d last had a mission together, their seventh since they’d first met in the training room. If he bore new scars, they were concealed under his clothes. 

Two women standing nearby let out quiet giggles; one of them directed an encouraging smile in Natalia’s direction.

Natalia sank herself into this new role easily, letting out a girlish laugh and allowing heat to rush to her cheeks. “Did I keep you long?” she asked, feigning dismay. “Anya wanted to discuss the movie and I lost track of time--” 

“I forgive you,” he said with a small, private smile that made her blush even more. He released her hand only to extend his right arm to her a second later. “Let’s go.” 

She accepted his arm, their hips brushing as they walked. “Is there a reason you are intruding upon my mission, comrade?” she whispered, her tone neutral even as she smiled and simpered at him. “If the order has changed, it is too late. The man is dead.” 

He looked amused at that. “The man walked out of the theater twenty minutes ago.”

“The man is dead,” she repeated, letting her smile widen until she was showing him most of her teeth. “Do not try to distract me with semantics, comrade. Perhaps you’ve forgotten, but I never fail.” 

“No, you don’t,” he agreed, and sounded almost proud of her, as though he’d had as much to do with her successes as she did. “And that is why I have a job I think you might enjoy. It’s a combination of infiltration and assassination.” Natalia arched an inquisitive eyebrow at him, and he offered her one of his rare laughs. “According to our dear comrade, it will take one or two months, perhaps longer.” 

When he didn’t immediately elaborate, her second eyebrow rose to join the first. “Infiltration jobs are nothing new,” she said. “What makes this one special?”

“Well, for one thing, I will be there with you. I’m arrogant enough to think we work well together,” he said, the corners of his eyes creasing in self-mocking amusement. “For another, we will be working in a minister’s dacha, which, if I remember your missions correctly, will be a new experience for you. It seems the minister has a traitor among his servants. At first, the traitor was giving relatively harmless information to a dissident newspaper that’s proven particularly difficult to crush, but now it seems the traitor is giving delicate information to a spy who might be British or American.” 

“Might be?” Natalia repeated.  

“The man is unusually clever with his codes. The only reason we even know about him at all is that one of his letters was intercepted through sheer luck. We decoded it only after five months of hard work.” 

“And so we are going to find him through his source?” 

The Winter Soldier nodded in agreement. “We do this quietly. The minister is furious and wants this handled as discreetly as possible. Make the servant disappear, and kill the spy as soon as we identify him.” 

“Kill, not capture?” Natalia said in surprise. “It sounds as though he would be useful--”

“The minister’s orders,” he said. Judging by the slight tightening of his shoulders, however, he agreed with her that it would be a waste. After a moment, the minute tension eased from his frame and he favored her with one of his rare crooked smiles, the ones that always reached his eyes.

“So, Natalia Romanova, would you consent to be my pretend wife?”

She found herself smiling with no precision and barely managed to stifle a laugh before it escaped her lips. Undercover as husband and wife; no wonder he’d wanted to share the assignment and the joke with her! “I would be honored to be your pretend wife, comrade,” she assured him, letting the smile stay on her face for a moment longer. 

His free hand reached into his pocket and then pulled out an unexceptional but well-cared-for wedding band. It was an odd weight on her finger when he slid it on; she had never before played a married woman. Usually it was her targets that were married. 

“We will go to the dacha tomorrow after you have given your report to Orlov,” he said. “You will be the new maid—the minister’s wife goes through servants like decadent Americans go through clothes, so it will not seem unusual. I will be the minister’s new driver.” 

“That will be useful when we need to dispose of the bodies,” she said.

To her surprise, the Winter Soldier looked amused. “Are you suggesting we use the minister’s car to move a dead body?”

“Yes,” Natalia said, and wondered why he laughed so loudly that people on the street turned to stare.

 

* * *

 

The minister’s wife was indeed a harridan, with a sour look and even worse attitude. Her husband obviously hadn’t told her of the traitor in their midst, for no one who knew Natalia’s true identity would dare to pinch her arm and glare at her. Well, unless they wished to die a slow and painful death, which Natalia supposed was always possible.  

“You may have heard that all of our things come from the warehouses of the administrative section of the Council of Ministers. This is true, but that doesn’t excuse you from any clumsiness. Anything you break will be deducted from your wages. Understood?”

“Understood,” Natalia said, keeping her expression blank. 

Once the minister’s wife had swept from the room, one of the younger maids, Renata, offered Natalia a sympathetic smile. “Unless you like having your arms black and blue, you’ll want to wear thicker sleeves from now on,” she said. 

“Thank you,” Natalia said, though any bruise the woman caused would be gone by the next morning thanks to the serum. She looked around; the minister’s wife had gathered all of the servants to introduce Natalia and the Winter Soldier, and presumably to remind everyone of how horrible she was. 

Already most of the servants had left, off to resume their duties. The Winter Soldier was nowhere in sight, presumably summoned by the minister to drive him somewhere. She would have to work her way through the twenty servants herself, see who the likeliest suspects were. 

“Just married?” Renata whispered, and Natalia blinked. 

“I’m sorry?”

“I asked if you were just married,” Renata said. “The way you looked around then, like you were looking for one person in particular-- your husband? My sister went through the same thing. She didn’t like to let Pavel leave her sight for a month after the wedding.”

“Oh. Yes.” That was as good an excuse as any, she supposed. She touched the ring, still unaccustomed to the weight of it on her hand.  

Renata sighed. “You are so lucky. I cannot wait to be married.” She lowered her voice to a confiding whisper. “I have been waiting forever for Semyon to ask, but he persists in waiting until he has earned enough money to support us.” 

Natalia automatically offered the girl a sympathetic smile even as she wondered how desperate Semyon was to marry his sweetheart, and what lengths he would go to procure the money.  

“Well, let’s get to work,” Renata said brightly.

Natalia wordlessly followed her up the stairs, ignoring the unease that pricked at her as she surveyed all the finery surrounding them. Wasn’t this exactly how the capitalist swine’s homes looked?  

‘Such thoughts are dangerous,’ she imagined the Winter Soldier saying before he broke a few of her fingers to reiterate the warning. 

She shook her head, banished the uneasy thoughts. She was here for the collaborator and the spy, after all, not to entertain traitorous thoughts herself.

 

* * *

 

That night, she stood beside the bed in the tiny, cramped room the minister had provided her and the Winter Soldier, and said, “So far, the likeliest suspect seems to be Semyon the gardener. The cook hates both the minister and his wife, but she hides her feelings so poorly I cannot see her concealing the fact that she is giving information to a spy. Semyon seems more likely to succeed in deception.” 

“Yes,” the Winter Soldier agreed, but he sounded distracted. 

She looked up at him even as she slipped out of her dress and stood on the cold floor in her underwear. “Is there something wrong?” 

“No, I--” The Winter Soldier scrubbed a hand over his face. “You could announce when you plan to undress,” he said at last. 

Natalia stared, and then smiled. He was joking, surely. She had changed in front of him numerous times, had nearly bled out on him during a mission gone wrong in Serbia. That he would choose now to be prudish had to be his idea of a joke, so she answered in kind. “Why? We are married after all.” 

He didn’t laugh. “That might be the role we’re playing, but you’re no longer a child, and--”

Anger flared red-hot in her chest. “I wasn’t a _child_  when we met,” she snapped, keeping her voice low. The walls were too thin here, and sound carried. “There are no children in the Red Room.”

“No,” he said slowly. “No, I suppose not.” 

“Besides, if the sight of my bare limbs makes you uncomfortable, you can turn away until I am under the covers,” she added. 

The Winter Soldier snorted. Then he actually looked at her, his eyes narrowing. He grabbed her elbow with his metal hand. His grip was firm, though not hard enough to bruise, and easy enough to break away from if she chose. “What happened to your arms?” 

Natalia glanced down at the yellowing bruises mottling her skin. “Oh. Those. The minister’s wife pinches,” she said, shrugging. 

“Once we complete the assignment, I could stage an accident and injure her somehow,” he suggested, just lightly enough for her to realize he was in deadly earnest. 

This time it was her turn to snort. “And have the minister demand your head? The woman is annoying but bearable. Besides, if it comes to that, I’ll figure out how to break her hand and make it look like an accident.”

“Yes, of course,” the Winter Soldier agreed, releasing her arm. 

Down the hall, someone let out a shout of laughter and was immediately shushed.

He glanced at the door, and then cleared his throat. “The walls are thin.” 

“We’ll have to talk quietly,” Natalia said with another shrug, sliding under the covers. “So, now that you’ve gotten over your foolishness, we should discuss Semyon--”

“My foolishness?” 

“You were acting like a boy who’s never seen a half-naked woman before,” she said flatly, a little irritated by his attempt at denial. “And like someone who thinks I need protection from a sour-faced woman who would wail if she so much as stubbed her toe.” 

The Winter Soldier’s expression twisted, and then smoothed out into a careful blankness. “I was a fool,” he agreed after a moment. “Forgive me.” 

“Get into bed and discuss the mission, and you’ll be forgiven,” she said. 

He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, and stooped to take off his boots. He undressed quickly, giving Natalia only a flash of scarred, bare skin before he doused all but one of the candles and then slipped beneath the covers. 

His warm weight pressed against her side, one of his ankles bumping against hers. With him under the covers, she was too hot. She didn’t protest. She couldn’t kick him out of bed, after all. (Well, she could, but to do so she would have to explain why, and he would only laugh.) 

“So, Semyon,” he said, turning his head to face her. 

His breath was warm against her face, and she remembered abruptly his mouth against her ear, whispering soft threats as she’d struggled against her restraints. She had not thought of that memory in years. “Yes, the gardener,” she repeated, and then stopped, searching for words and finding none in the sudden silence of her own mind. 

“Natalia,” he said, a whispered question. The candle’s dim light fell upon his face, but it will still too dark to make out his expression. 

“You are the only one who calls me that, you know,” she said. She didn’t know where the words came from. “Even after I earned my name back, Orlov and the others began calling me the Black Widow.” 

This close to him, she could feel the movement as he took a deep breath. “Orlov’s a fool. Your name suits you.”

She almost laughed. “And Black Widow doesn’t?” 

“Black Widow is a title, like Winter Soldier is, but Natalia is your name. You should be called by your name whenever possible.”

The unnamed girl who had first faced the Winter Soldier in that training room over five years ago had been daring, but not as daring as the woman who now lay in bed with him. 

That girl had not seduced more than a dozen men and killed them with poisoned kisses and the occasional brutal movement of her thighs, had not worn two dozen aliases that never fit as well as her true name did, had not rooted out spies and traitors from within the poorest of neighborhoods and the comfortable homes of chairmen, had not stopped the heart of one of the girls in her dormitory after the serum had failed and left the girl deformed and in constant agony. 

This woman had, and so the question left her lips after only a second’s hesitation. “Shouldn’t you be called by your name, then?”

He was silent for a moment, and then rolled away from her. The blankets shifted as he moved so that she stared at his revealed back, the tight muscles in his shoulders, his bowed head, all cast in dancing shadow by the flickering candlelight. 

She pressed herself against his back, keeping her hands at her sides. Anything more would seem like she was trying to restrain him, and she knew he wouldn’t react well to that. “Surely you’ve earned your name,” she whispered into the back of his neck, her lips brushing the short hairs there. 

He twitched. “Natalia,” he said in warning, but she ignored him. 

“The Winter Soldier is a title as the Black Widow is a title, you said. Why doesn’t anyone call you by name?” 

When he responded, it was almost a snarl. “Names are dangerous things.”

Natalia snorted. “Unless your name is Alexei Nikolaevich, I don’t see how your name could be dangerous.” 

“I think…I don’t remember,” he said, and now he sounded almost desperate. His body was tense against hers, ready to leap from the bed, but to her surprise, he didn’t try to escape. “We shouldn’t talk about this, Natalia.” 

“You call me by my name. I want to call you by yours,” she said. She remembered, suddenly, what the rumors said of the Winter Soldier, that Rodchenko had unmade him and rebuilt him. Softly, she added, “If you still remember it.” 

A sigh escaped him, so soft that she barely heard it. “All I remember is the Red Room. Everything else is…blank. Gray. But sometimes I dream and I think someone calls me….”

“Calls you what?” she whispered after a long moment, hesitant to break the spell, startled that he had confided this much in her. Was it the darkness that had loosened his tongue, and the fact that they couldn’t see each other’s faces? Or was she simply the first person to ask him his name?  

“James.” The name sounded wrenched from his chest, and he shuddered, like it hurt to say aloud. 

“James? You mean Yakov?” 

“No. James.” 

She puzzled over that, an Anglicized version of a Russian name, before she mentally shrugged. Perhaps his parents had been foolish dissidents who’d longed to escape to America. Perhaps it was not his real name at all, just a confused memory from an assignment that seemed more real to him than the others. “James,” she whispered against the top of his spine, and felt a full-bodied shudder move through him. She pressed her lips to the delicate skin there, said again, “James.” 

His hand, the one still made of flesh, moved backwards, caught one of her hands and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her and breathed her name against the palm of her hand like a secret. 

She left a trail of kisses upon his shoulders the way she’d sometimes let herself imagine when she’d been alone on her cot or underneath a target as he moved inside her. She breathed in the scent of him, sweat and soap overlaid by the smell of musk, committing every detail to memory. 

It was strange, an altogether wonderful strangeness, to be kissing someone out of actual desire rather than duty. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” he said, almost conversationally as he kissed the tips of her fingers. “Orlov, for one, would consider us compromised.” 

Natalia laughed then. “Then he’d be wrong. This won’t impact the mission,” she assured him, despite the reckless warmth in her chest, the odd giddiness that made her stomach leap. She kissed his shoulder and laughed again at the thought that anyone might think she would choose this over her mission, no matter how pleasurable kissing James was. 

“Oh? Then you swear to let me die if that is what it takes to complete the mission?” he asked. 

She could hear the smile in his voice. “I would kill you myself, if necessary,” she promised. Then she pushed James onto his back, stopping his laughter with her mouth and a slow, teasing roll of her hips against his. 

 

* * *

 

“A month, you said,” Natalia said a week later as she circled the spy, an American code-named something ridiculous she had forgotten seconds after Renata had confided it to her. She didn’t let regret color her voice, but she’d hoped to play the role of wife a little while longer. It had been…interesting, sleeping with someone she didn’t have to kill afterwards.  

“That’s what Orlov said, but he does tend to underestimate us,” James said. She didn’t glance over, but she knew he had shrugged. There was the familiar sound of someone choking that quickly trailed off to silence, and then Natalia heard the thud of Renata’s body hitting the ground. “We have to kill Semyon as well, you know.”

“Of course. No one would believe she ran off alone, not when every other sentence from her lips was about him,” she agreed. She would have kept talking, except that the spy chose that moment to stumble. 

She darted forward, dodging the wild, frantic swing of his knife, and opened the artery in his right leg with a quick movement. When he fell, clutching the wound, she stepped behind him and slit his throat. 

She wiped her blade on the spy’s shirt as he bled out into the dirt. “He might have been an excellent spy, but he was terrible at fighting,” she observed with some disgust. _This_ had been the infamous spy that it had taken so long to discover? 

“In his defense, Natshechka, American spies are not trained from childhood to kill,” James said, sounding amused. 

She stepped over both corpses and pressed a quick kiss to James’s mouth, resisting the urge to deepen the kiss. She didn’t let herself think about the possibility of this being their last one. 

“Their mistake,” she said. “Take their bodies to the grave site. I’ll handle Semyon.”

“You realize we only dug two graves,” James said mildly. 

Natalia shrugged. “We’ll bury the lovers together.”

“Some might call that romantic,” James said, dry as dust.

Natalia smiled and shook her head at him. She moved past him, already planning how to take Semyon down. The man was muscular from years of working in the garden, but he had no defensive training. Besides, she would have the element of surprise. 

“And use the minister’s car,” she said over her shoulder. “It has the largest trunk.” 

 

* * *

 

“We have to tell Orlov,” James said as he drove towards Department X. 

Natalia didn’t quite make a face, she was too well-trained for that, but it was a very near thing. “Yes. He’ll probably try to separate us.” She thought of their likely separation and couldn’t quite hide her displeasure at the idea, frowning out the window.  

“That might be for the best,” James said, softer. 

This time Natalia did make a face. “It isn’t as though we’re in love, James.” 

James kept his gaze fixed on the road, but his grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Of course not,” he said with a twist of his lips. “Love is for children, and there are no children in the Red Room.” 

“Exactly,” Natalia said, satisfied that he understood, and leaned back in her seat. She ignored the way her stomach twisted like she’d just bitten into something sour. James had simply taken the corner too sharply, that was all. 

After a stretch of quiet, she found that she was fiddling with the wedding ring. She frowned down at it, almost surprised to find it still on her finger. “What should I do with this?”

James shrugged when he glanced over and she flashed the ring at him. “I stole it off a woman’s finger in Prague. You can do what you like.” 

For an absurd moment she found herself contemplating keeping it. Then she shook her head. Why would she keep it? As a memento to a few nights spent in bed with James? That sentimentality was foolishness personified. 

She rolled down the window. She threw the ring and watched it flash in the sunlight before it vanished upon the cobblestones. 

 

* * *

 

“We thought it best to tell you, comrade,” James concluded, standing with his hands clasped behind him before Orlov’s desk. He’d insisted on being the one to tell Orlov, although he’d given into Natalia’s demand that she be in the room with him when he did so. 

She hadn’t spoken, not even to correct James as he left out the parts where she’d coaxed his name from him and how she’d been the one to make the first move. She’d stood there, silent, watching as Orlov slowly turned purple with rage. 

“You--” Orlov’s shocked gaze swung between them as though he couldn’t decide who to be angrier with. “You cannot be serious,” he said finally, spitting out the words like they tasted foul. “You cannot stand there and tell me with no trace of shame that you let your desires distract you from your duties.” 

Natalia met his eyes evenly. “Distract us from our duties, comrade? We found and killed the spy in a week when we were told it would take us a month or two, if not longer.” 

“Do not interrupt me,” Orlov snapped. Something in her expression must have changed, because the color leached from his face and he pushed his chair away from his desk, further out of her and James’s reach. “I-I…it is not allowed.” 

“Because it’s assumed that two operatives fucking are instantly compromised,” James said, words blunt, toneless. When Natalia looked at him from the corner of her eye, his expression was blank. “We are not compromised, comrade. If we were, we wouldn’t have told you what occurred. We would have simply continued until our compromised positions led to disaster.”

His words seemed to appease Orlov, who nodded slowly. “That’s true,” he said, tugging on his beard. “Yes, I suppose you could have kept it a secret.” He leaned back in his chair, a bit more relaxed. “I suppose since the mission was successful and you did come forward, there was no real harm done. I’ll still have to separate you, of course.”

“Of course,” James agreed in the same tone one might agree that the sky was blue. 

“Of course,” Natalia echoed, mimicking his tone even as she inwardly frowned. Even for Orlov, he had caved too quickly.  

“Widow, you’ll be training our new operatives for the next few weeks. Soldier, how does Poland sound to you?” 

James shrugged. “Acceptable, comrade.” 

“You’ll head out in two hours. You are both dismissed.”

They both turned to go, though Natalia knew that it could not be this easy, not when Orlov’s fear of them and the other successes in the program had turned to resentment over the past five years. 

“Wait,” Orlov said in a smug tone that sent a pulse of pure hatred through her. 

They both turned back. 

Orlov leaned back in his chair, assuming a pensive look as he tapped his cheek. “It seems to me that there must some punishment for such a transgression, even if you two are too useful to be taken out of the field entirely,” he said. “Soldier, before you go, I want every joint in the Widow’s left arm dislocated.” 

Natalia fought every instinct to fight back as James, expressionless, methodically worked over her arm. The pain darkened her vision and made her sway on her feet, but she managed somehow to stay upright. She could barely hear the sound of her own voice over the buzzing in her ears once James had finished. “And should I to do the same to him, Comrade Orlov?” 

Orlov shook his head. When the darkness at the edges of her vision receded a little, she could see the trace of smugness still lurking in his eyes. The injuries were a small-minded revenge for her frightening him earlier, but Orlov often resorted to such pettiness. “No. He’ll need both arms for his mission. Although…Soldier, I believe you are due for a check-in with Doctor Rodchenko when you return from Poland.”

Doctor Rodchenko. That meant time with in the immersion programming chamber, time with Rodchenko’s incessant off-key humming in James’s ears as the doctor pried memories from James’s head and shredded them to nothing. Would he take all the memories of the past week? Would he take all of James’s memories of her? Would James even recognize her when they next met?  

Beside her, James’s expression had turned to marble. “Doctor Rodchenko would know about that better than I, comrade.” 

Natalia took in a harsh breath, wanting desperately to argue that their punishments should be equal. Only the knowledge that Orlov would have used her argument as evidence that she and James were too attached stopped her. 

Orlov waved a hand. “Be certain to see the doctor when you get back, Soldier. Now, go.” 

They left the room in silence. She focused on taking one step forward, then another, each dislocated joint protesting more with each passing second until she was nearly blind with pain. Not for the first time, she was grateful for the serum enhancing her ability to withstand pain; a normal person would have been unconscious after the third dislocated finger. 

“Do you think you’re going to Poland for Project Chessmen?” she asked, knowing it was a foolish question but needing something to distract her from the agony and to get that cold, blank expression off James’s face.

James shrugged, not looking at her. “Most of my missions outside Russia involve the project in some way.” There was a stretch of silence in which Natalia took another careful step forward. “Good luck dealing with Bullski. I’ve already heard rumors that he needs his pride broken.”

Despite her pain, a dangerous smile touched her lips. Refocusing her rage from Orlov, the man who had the power to send her as well as James to Rodchenko, to Bullski, a new operative who eyed her like she was something on the menu, was safer in the long run, anyway. “Even with a useless arm, I can handle ten Bullskis.”

“Of course,” he agreed, but didn’t smile back. He lowered his voice, quiet enough that she had to struggle to make out the words. “Can you make it to the infirmary on your own? Collapsing in a hallway wouldn’t do much for your reputation.”

“I can walk two more corridors,” she said dismissively. “You’d better hurry and get ready for your flight.” 

James didn’t exactly hesitate, but his steps slowed minutely. “Bullski favors his right knee from an old military injury.” 

“I’d noticed, but thank you for the advice. Now go,” Natalia said. When he continued at his slow pace, she managed a small shake of her head. “I am going to the infirmary. I might even let them offer me some painkillers and rest for a few hours. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” James said dryly, and left. 

The foolish desire to call out and say good-bye welled in her chest. She ignored the impulse, swallowing back the words, and made her way slowly and painstakingly to the infirmary.

  

* * *

 

When she next saw him, he stood on the top of a building in Vienna, staring down the barrel of his still-smoking rifle at her. 

Natalia gazed up at him and didn’t let herself hope. Instead, she nudged one of the corpses at her feet out of the way before his blood could stain her dress and folded her arms against her chest. 

“I could have handled it,” she said, knowing he would read her lips. 

He answered her with a salute perhaps only ten percent mocking, and then vanished from her line of sight as sirens began to wail in the distance. 

She took in a deep breath, and then calmly picked her way across the pile of bodies. 

He was waiting for her at her hotel room, the rifle in pieces on her bed, and his shirt slung carelessly over a nearby chair. He didn’t look up as she dropped her green pearl earrings to the ground and smashed them under her heels. On the long and varied list of presents her marks had given her, those earrings had been one of the ugliest. 

“The last I heard, you were in Prague,” she said. 

“I was,” he said, and finally looked at her. There were more creases around his eyes and a new scar low on his stomach that looked as though it’d been a particularly unpleasant injury. Then he smiled that crooked smile of his, and the tightness eased in her chest. “Orlov received word that the intel he’d given you was faulty. I was the closest operative.”  

“I admit, discovering the fact that the man had twelve bodyguards instead of four was irritating,” Natalia said. She offered him the smallest of smiles as she went to work on the pins in her hair, placing the pins and hidden knife on the bed stand. “Who knew politicians could be so paranoid? Still, I could have handled it.” 

James shrugged. “It was nice to get to use a rifle again. Most of my kills have been up close and personal lately.” 

“You’re welcome, I suppose,” Natalia said. She turned to find him watching her, his expression closed off. She paused in the middle of sliding a knife out of her boot. “And our orders?”

“I have to return to Prague, but there’s a new assignment waiting for you when you get back to the department.”

“Time enough for this, then,” she said, and slid the knife back into its halter before she shoved James off the bed. She placed her heel against his throat before he could get to his feet and pressed most of her weight down when he shifted.

“For your arm?” he choked out, gasping for breath. Despite the redness of his face, his body language was otherwise calm and unresisting, like he had expected this. Perhaps he had.  

“As though I would take revenge for something Orlov ordered you to do,” Natalia said with a twist of her lips. “No, James, this is for not getting word to me that Rodchenko hadn’t wiped all your memories of me.” 

James grabbed her ankle with his prosthetic hand and squeezed lightly. She shifted some of her weight off his throat, ignoring the flash of memory that remembered the last time he had held her ankle like this.

When he’d gotten enough breath back, he said, “Orlov has kept us both busy. And I thought seeking you out would look a little strange.” 

“Thirteen months,” she said, and stepped back. “You have no excuse.” 

There was a red mark on his throat; James didn’t rub at it as he got to his feet. Instead he offered her a faint smile, the type that promised a particularly high body count. “If you’ll accept an apology, I know of a nice restaurant.”

“A nice restaurant,” Natalia repeated, incredulous. He wanted to treat her to dinner? 

“Yes. Excellent food, and run by particularly unpleasant black-market smugglers. I thought dealing with them would be a second dessert.” 

Natalia tilted her head, considering the offer. She _was_  hungry, and it might be relaxing to get some exercise not expressly commanded by Orlov.

“I get to kill the owners myself?”

“Of course.” 

“I _am_ a little hungry,” she said.

James’s smile turned crooked. “Just let me get dressed.” 

If Natalia ignored the way James kept out of her reach for the rest of the evening, as though they were both fools who couldn’t resist temptation, it was an otherwise enjoyable night.  

 

* * *

 

Orlov steepled his fingers and frowned at them both. “You have heard of Vitaliy Nemov,” he said. 

They nodded, Natalia ignoring the tug of the stitches on her shoulder from an assassin’s failed attempt at a garrote. 

She and James had seen each other only three times in the nine years since Orlov had had James dislocate her arm, but something had changed since their last meeting. It wasn’t just the fading sunburn on his features; James looked worn-down, shadows under his eyes and exhaustion weighing upon his shoulders even at parade-rest. 

She didn’t let herself stare, kept her eyes fixed upon Orlov, whose frown had deepened.  

“Apparently, despite his brilliance, Nemov is foolish enough to entertain thoughts of defection to America,” Orlov said. 

“And we are to dissuade him, of course,” James said. His eyes narrowed, and a trace of impatience soured his tone. “You called us in for a few broken bones?”

Orlov waved a hand, either oblivious to or choosing to ignore James’s tone. “No, of course not. You are not to harm him. We cannot risk damaging the brain of such a valuable scientist. But the unfortunate death of his oldest son, David, should deter Nemov from trying to make further contact with America.” 

Orlov slid a photograph across the desk. 

Natalia studied it. It was in black and white, but the target looked to be about twenty-five or so, blond and thin. He had the look of someone who had been sickly as a child and who’d never quite recovered, but he wore a cheerful smile, one arm draped across his father’s shoulder and the other waving at the camera as the father and son both smiled. 

“The son’s an artist, but apparently not a dissident,” Orlov said. “On the back of the photo are the names of the clubs he frequents.” A small smirk curved his lips as he looked at Natalia. “Apparently he has a fondness for redheads. That should make things easy for you, Widow.” 

“Are we staging it as an accident, comrade?” she asked, ignoring his mocking tone. “Or are we putting the blame on someone else? He might be loyal, but I am certain there are dissidents in these clubs that we could use.”

“If you can manage it, we would prefer the blame go to this woman,” Orlov said, and slid another photograph over to them. “Feina Volkova. She is a lawyer, but she’s often at these clubs. She was the defense in that case last month that, ah, embarrassed the Minister of Culture.”

Volkova looked a bit like Natalia if one squinted, although she wore a half-tipsy smile Natalia knew she herself would never wear unless acting a part. She was leaning against another woman, their heads wreathed in cigarette smoke as they relaxed in the unnamed club. 

“Kill the son, put the blame on her. Understood?”

“Yes,” Natalia said. 

James said nothing. When she looked over, there was a crease in his forehead, and one of his fingers traced the corners of the son’s photograph. 

“Understood?”  Orlov repeated, a little louder. 

“Understood,” James said, not looking away from the photograph. 

Unease fluttered in Natalia’s stomach. What had happened to James on his latest mission? She had never seen him this distracted. “If you’ll excuse us, comrade,” she said, “we’ll go.” 

Out of Orlov’s sight, she nudged at James’s ankle with her own until he blinked and said, “Yes. We should follow them. See which of the clubs they both frequent.” 

“Very well,” Orlov said, eyeing them both. “Dismissed.” 

 

* * *

 

“What is that saying? The sins of the father break the heads of the sons?” she asked James as they entered their third club of the night. (This was their fourth night combing the clubs with no sign of Nemov or Volkova. Natalia suspected the club names on the back of the photograph were not entirely accurate.) “It seems a pity to kill the son because of the father’s foolishness.” 

She was being deliberately provocative, trying to surprise a reaction from James, but he only made a quiet, noncommittal noise in his throat, his pale eyes scanning the club. 

“I thought you might seduce Volkova, get a few personal items to incriminate her, and I would plant the items after I kill Nemov.”

“That won’t work,” James said absently. 

“It won’t?” 

“I did some extra research on Volkova. She has a lover,” he said. 

Natalia laughed. “When has that stopped anyone--”

“Her lover’s name is Petra,” James said, which effectively stopped her argument mid-sentence. 

“I suppose I could seduce her,” Natalia said, but it was offered doubtfully. She looked similar enough to the woman that she doubted Volkova would be attracted to her. 

“No. We’ll make it seem as though he tried to seduce her and she reacted badly. If her relationship comes out in court, that will only help the case against her. We’ll pick her pocket, perhaps break into her apartment to get something to plant.” 

“Fine.” The club was crowded, filled with music, laughter, cigarette smoke. Everyone was caught up in their own conversations. 

Natalia stepped closer to James, crowding him against the wall, one of her fingernails pressing lightly but warningly against a sensitive bundle of nerves in his arm. “Tell me what is going on,” she demanded, lips pressed to his ear. “You were distracted even before Orlov gave us the assignment. And why do you still have Nemov’s photograph? You keep reaching into your pocket and touching it.” 

“Do I?” James said. He blinked, and his expression struggled for a moment. In that instant, he looked like someone half-asleep trying to wake up and failing. “I…doesn’t he seem familiar to you?” 

“No,” she said, frowning. “He looks a bit like his father, I suppose, if you look closely, but I have never seen him before.” 

“I keep thinking I know him. Perhaps from another assignment….”

“Another assignment? He’s an artist, one loyal to the homeland. How would you have met him?”

“I don’t--” The crease was back in James’s forehead, his mouth tight as though he was in pain. “I suppose I couldn’t have,” he said at last, though his expression didn’t ease. He shook his head, as if to clear it, and peered past Natalia’s shoulder. “There’s Volkova. You follow her, see which clubs she frequents the most, and get some of her mannerisms down. I’ll go to his apartment, follow him around rather than wait to stumble upon him in a club.”  

“I can do that, but…James,” she said, hesitating. The unease still twisted her stomach, all her instincts clamoring that something was wrong. “I can handle this assignment on my own if you haven’t recovered from your last one-- I’ll tell Orlov I insisted--”

“I’m fine. I’ll go to his place. I’ll meet up with you in three days here at 8 o’clock.” 

“All right,” Natalia said slowly, knowing her agreement was a mistake but unable to figure out a way to get James off this assignment without getting them both punished. She shifted her grip on his arm, lowered her hand to entwine her fingers with his and squeeze. The rare gesture was enough for James to blink and focus on her for a moment. “Don’t do anything foolish.” 

A smile struggled across James’s face before it faded to something almost jaded. “If you keep this up, Romanova, I’ll start to suspect you actually care about me.”

“Please,” Natalia said with a snort. It was too hot in this club; she could feel sweat begin to bead on her neck and hairline. “I am simply concerned about the assignment--”

“Yes, of course,” James said, but already he’d looked away, distracted again. “Three days from now. Eight o’clock.” 

She watched him vanish into the crowd, ignoring the voice in her head that told her to knock him unconscious, tie him up, and leave him somewhere secluded for the next week while she finished the assignment herself. 

Natalia pushed away from the wall, moving to blend into the crowd next to Volkova and her companions. Still, the unease stayed with her, a certain tightness in her chest that didn’t seem inclined to ease. 

* * *

 

“Want to dance?” a man asked, approaching Natalia’s table. His easy smile faltered at her expression. “Sorry to interrupt.” He backed away quickly, though after a second Natalia didn’t bother to watch him run. 

Natalia wasn’t one to fidget, but tonight she found herself fighting multiple urges to play with her napkin, to smooth her hair away from her face, to fiddle with her purse that contained the materials needed to incriminate Volkova. 

She felt itchy and out of joint, her skin stretched taut over her bones. Her heart pounded against her ribs, the beats too loud in her ears. She wished that a brawl would start so that she could justifiably break some bones and get rid of this anxious pressure. She checked her watch again, but it told her the same thing it had told her two minutes ago. 

James was late. 

Another ten minutes, she promised herself, and then she would go to Nemov’s place. Still, she couldn’t figure out what could have gone wrong. If James had moved too early and killed Nemov himself, she would have heard of it by now. News of the murder of Vitaliy Nemov’s son, a respected artist and a man without any apparent enemies, would spread through the clubs like wildfire. And there was no way that Nemov could have killed James….

Another ten minutes, and she was gone. 

David Nemov’s apartment was empty and seemingly undisturbed. Still there were details that made her stomach drop, little signs that this assignment had gone wrong. 

There was a layer of dust on Nemov’s dresser-- apparently artists didn’t clean-- save for a clean patch where a framed photograph had stood only a day or two earlier. His bookshelf had gaps where books had obviously been, too many for Natalia to believe that he had let friends borrow the books. In the small room that he’d used as a studio, most of his art supplies were gone. 

There was no doubt about it. Nemov had fled, and James was missing. Either Nemov had killed James and fled, or--

Whatever the scenario, this wasn’t going to end well. She looked around once more, and then set to work. A few minutes later, the bedroom looked like a vicious fight had ensued, and a few of Volkova’s belongings had been strewn on the floor. 

It was a messy job, but it would at least put Orlov off the scent and buy her some time while she figured out what had happened and track down James. 

“I knew I should have handled this assignment myself,” she said to the silent room, and then went to find him. 

* * *

 

She tracked James and David Nemov to a small, run-down boarding house twenty miles from the border, four days later. It was an easier search than she’d thought it would be-- a skinny, sickly man with blond hair and a silent companion with dark hair, pale eyes, and gloves he never took off tended to stick in people’s memory. 

When she broke into the room, Nemov looked at her with an odd relief in his eyes. “Are you here for him?” he asked, starting towards her. “I think he needs help-- he’s been mumbling strange things, and I think he’s got a fever.” 

Nemov blinked as she pulled out a knife from her coat and moved towards him. “Oh,” he said faintly, relief replaced by the numbed look that came when a person was too exhausted and overwhelmed to feel even fear. “So he wasn’t insane. You _are_ here to kill me.” 

“Yes, but I’ll make it quick,” she said. He didn’t look grateful, but then, she hadn’t expected him to be. She took another step forward, and then paused. “He’s sick?” 

“He made me pack a bag of my things, told me we had to get away from the city if I wanted to live. After a while, though, he just started mumbling in English, and I don’t speak it, so I d-don’t think--” Nemov’s voice faltered, his bloodshot eyes fixated on her knife. “He’s in the bathroom.” 

“Stay still, and it will be over soon,” she said, and took another step forward. 

The bathroom door opened.

Natalia paused, her attention shifting from Nemov’s pale face to the gun that James held. His hands were, as always, steady. 

“James,” she said. His name came out with no inflection. 

“Usually I’m happy to hear a pretty gal knows my name, but I can’t let you kill him,” James said, but it was all wrong, his voice. It wasn’t that he was speaking English, because they were all trained to speak and think in English and at least four other languages. It was necessary training for espionage against the decadent West. What was wrong was that accent, a harsh one with unfamiliar vowels and consonants, and that tone, a flat one with no recognition in it. His eyes were narrowed, his lips twisted in a sneer. “You understand, right? I can’t let you hurt him. I don’t like to hurt dames, but I’ll make an exception for you if you make another move with that knife.” 

“James,” she said, but then Nemov bolted for the window. She turned and threw the knife, not quite surprised when James shot the knife in mid-air and sent it spinning to embed in the wall instead of Nemov’s back. She was reaching for her second knife when she felt the press of the muzzle against the back of her head. 

“Hands up, sweetheart,” he said. “You don’t touch Steve.” 

Nemov scrambled out of the window, his flailing bare feet her last sight of him as he fell and landed with a dull thump outside. He would run, she knew, though he wouldn’t be able to escape them for long. What did an artist know of hiding from Department X? 

Natalia stayed still, barely breathed as she said, “Steve? His name is David, James. David Nemov. Have you forgotten your assignment?”

The muzzle pressed harder against her head. “You’re gonna have to speak English for this to work.” 

There was a dangerous undertone to his voice. She switched to English. “His name is David. David Nemov. Not Steve. Have you forgotten our assignment?”

“Assignment? I don’t work for the Soviets. I sure as hell don’t work for them when they want to kill my best friend.” 

Natalia stared hard at the window Nemov had escaped through, thinking quickly. James had endured more implanted memories than anyone else she knew, as though the Red Room hadn’t thought he could handle most undercover assignments without truly believing he was that person. Perhaps something had gone wrong, perhaps some implanted personality had taken over. She kept her voice calm and matter-of-fact. “That man is not your best friend, James. His name is David Nemov. He is a Russian artist we were assigned to kill.”

James’s hand shook; she felt the reverberations in the muzzle and tensed despite herself. “You’re right,” he said after a moment, still in that same accent, confusion creeping into his voice. “He’s not Steve. Steve’s bigger. Who was--”

“David Nemov, and we’ll both be punished if he lives.”  

“But why would I want to kill this guy--” James began. 

He lowered the gun, and she spun, knocking it from his hand and pushing him backwards, into the bathroom and onto the floor. She kneed him in the groin, pressed her arm against his throat, choked him then until he gasped for air and his eyes watered. It was easier to subdue him than it should have been, even his serum-enhanced body worn out by lack of sleep and days of flight. 

“Stop,” she snapped as he thrashed weakly. “Stay here and let me handle this. I’ll catch up to Nemov, kill him, and then we’ll take you back to the Red Room, have Rodchenko-- James?” 

He’d gone slack beneath her at the mention of the Red Room, his eyes dilating until the blue was practically gone. “The Red Room,” he gasped. He met her eyes then, a spark of recognition faint amid his slowly dawning horror. 

“Oh Christ,” he said, still in English, and then struck her across the face with his metal fist. 

She fell, head ringing from the blow. He stepped on her, metal-toed boots digging into her ribs and thigh, but it seemed less deliberate and more of a rush to get away as she rolled to her side and watched dizzily as he headed for the window Nemov had disappeared through. 

“James,” she said, tasting blood where he’d split her lip. She scrambled up, grabbing the gun. “Where are you going?” 

He stopped at the window, and turned to face her. He’d palmed one of her knives somehow. His expression was remote, his eyes cold and determined as he pointed the knife at her. When he spoke, it was in Russian and almost a snarl. “Stay where you are, Natalia. If you try to take me back, I’ll kill you.” 

“You have to come back with me,” Natalia said, watching him adjust his grip on the knife’s handle, tremors racing through his frame. She tried to ease forward, stopped when he adjusted his stance to one that would make throwing his knife easier. “Some memory implant’s gone wrong--”

He interrupted her with a harsh laugh. He was crying, though she didn’t think he was aware of it, tears streaming down his face. He shook his head. “I’m warning you one more time. I love you, but I’ll kill us both before I ever go back.” 

“You don’t love me,” she said, not letting her hands shake even though they wanted to. 

He nodded to himself, the smile gone, replaced by an expression she couldn’t decipher. “That’s right. Love doesn’t exist in the Red Room, does it, Natshechka? So I suppose this won’t be difficult for you,” he said, and raised the knife to throw at her throat. 

It was an old gun. When she fired, the recoil was like a punch to the shoulder. She dropped it. It hit the ground a second after James did, a loud thud followed by a still louder one. 

Blood took a moment to well up from the wound, but then the blood began to spread and kept spreading across James’s chest. She watched the blood patch widen, because otherwise she would have to look at his face and see his last expression and she couldn’t-- she couldn’t-- 

“Damn it, James. You promised no foolishness,” she whispered. Each word fell from her lips like a stone. 

After a moment, she forced herself to look at his face. Would it have been better or worse to have seen betrayal rather than relief? She supposed she would never know. 

Someone was pounding on the door to the room, demanding an explanation, she realized. She ignored the yelling and took off her coat. She threw it over his body, hiding his final expression and pulpy mess of his chest from view, and then dragged his-- the-- body out the window. She didn’t let herself concentrate on the sensory details, like how the dead weight felt in her arms, or the sounds the steel-toed boots made as she dragged the body through the mud. 

She took it out to the woods, buried the body in a shallow grave. Then she went to the next closest town to buy supplies. A few hours later, the body was destroyed beyond recognition. 

She held the prosthetic arm, unsurprised at its weight. “They are going to punish me,” she told the arm in a matter-of-fact tone, “especially since I burned the body. But I couldn’t let them have that. I couldn’t take him back. Perhaps they will be a little grateful that I managed to salvage you.”  

The prosthetic arm didn’t respond, which was probably a good thing, considering. 

* * *

 

When she set the arm down on Orlov’s desk and told him that the Winter Soldier was dead, Orlov looked as though she had shot him through the heart as well. 

Then he struck her. It was a weak blow, but it was the same spot James had hit her, and she rocked in place, trying to ignore the wave of dizziness and blinking stars from her eyes. 

“Stay here,” he said. She kept her eyes closed, trying to find her center of balance even as she listened to him run from the room. 

Later, though she did not know how much later, time seeming to move in an odd, uncertain flow around her, a throat cleared behind her. When she turned, Doctor Rodchenko stood next to Orlov. 

Orlov looked pale and miserable; Rodchenko, disgusted. 

“Orlov tells me the Soldier had a breakdown of some kind and you had to kill him.” 

“He didn’t remember who he was,” Natalia said. “It was him or me.” 

“I would expect so,” Rodchenko said, almost absently. Then he pursed his lips and turned towards Orlov. “Comrade Orlov? You were told not to assign this particular target to the Winter Soldier.” 

Orlov shifted uneasily. “There had been some mention in the assignment details about that, but I thought it was a suggestion, not an order.” 

“I see,” Rodchenko said mildly. “Black Widow? If you’d like, kill Comrade Orlov for me.” 

The knife sprung from her hand before she consciously realized she’d drawn it, her arm moving as though it’d been waiting for that order all her life. 

Rodchenko looked dispassionately down at Orlov as the man clutched at the knife in his throat. “That, you fool, was a _suggestion_.” He looked at Natalia. “You’ll have to be punished, you know. The Winter Soldier was more valuable than you could hope to understand.”

“Yes, doctor,” Natalia said. 

It wasn’t until she turned the corner with him that she realized where he was leading her. Some of the numbness that had spread through her frame faded, replaced by fear.

“Doctor Rodchenko,” she said. Her throat was dry, terror thick and bitter on her tongue. “How am I to be punished?” 

He didn’t acknowledge her words. 

“Doctor Rodchenko,” she said again, stopping in front of the door. It had once been a bright cherry red, she’d been told, but now it was faded to the color of dried blood. This was where the program had gotten its name. This was the place James had chosen to die rather than return to. 

She licked her dry lips. “Doctor Rodchenko.”

“Come along,” he said. 

It was only the knowledge that she wouldn’t make it more than three corridors before they caught her that forced her forward through the door and to a punishment that made her wish she’d let James’s knife reach its target. 

* * *

 

* * *

“What did they do to you?” the psychologist asked. He hadn’t grown bolder as she’d recounted her interactions with the Winter Soldier, but he had become engaged enough to ask questions without trembling.

She leaned back in her chair, kept her eyes focused on the spot just beyond Fury’s left shoulder. “They took me to two rooms. The first was an interrogation room. Rodchenko wanted every detail of the last moments of the Winter Soldier’s life. The second room was the immersion programming chamber, where Doctor Rodchenko did his memory-tampering. He was Department X’s expert on implanting and removing memories, you see. Before, I’d had a few partial memories of people I believe were my parents. There was a piece of a lullaby I remembered, that type of childish memory. Doctor Rodchenko took those away.”

 

“How did you know you’d lost them?” the interrogator asked. 

“One of the other girls who succeeded-- Tatiana-- we told each other about what we remembered of the time before the Red Room, after we’d earned our names. She mentioned a detail from one of my memories during a mission a few years later. I didn’t know what she was referencing.” 

“Then what happened?” Fury asked.

She almost laughed. “The Winter Solder was dead. I was not. I went on more missions, killed more people.” She didn’t hesitate as she slipped in the next lie. “They began putting us in cryogenic sleep, after a while. Wanting to preserve their best tools, I suppose. Then the Soviet Union fell, and the Red Room lost their funding. Orlov’s successor sold us off to the highest bidders. I…did not get along with the organization that purchased me. They made the mistake of objecting when I left.” 

“Yes. That particular mess is what first got you on our radar,” Fury said. “Before, we’d assumed Black Widow was a code name used by several women.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “Really? I suppose I was a little messy that time. Anyway, I tried the mercenary route instead. The Red Room trained me well, but only for a specific skill set.”

“We hadn’t noticed,” Fury said, his face expressionless but his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And then?”

She shrugged. “And then a few years later, Barton broke half of my ribs and decided I would make a better asset than a corpse.” She smiled at Fury with all her teeth. “And now I’m here.”

“And now you’re here,” he agreed. Then he turned to the mirror that was actually a one-way window. “Well?”

A disembodied voice filled the room. “She’s lying about a few details, Director. The Winter Soldier didn’t try to defect, a memory implant went wrong and she had to kill him. And she wasn’t put in cryogenic sleep; the Russian serum’s slowed her aging. For the most part, though, she told the truth. Of course, with her mind this damaged by the Red Room’s machines, it’s a bit difficult to tell what she believes to be true and what is true, but that’s why I suggested we get Xavier back--”

“Thank you,” Fury said in a quelling tone.

She bit back a snarl. Telepaths. She’d endured her sessions with the professor, but he’d been forthright about what he was doing inside her mind. He hadn’t hidden behind a wall and rummaged around her head like a thief. She glared at the mirror. 

‘If I get my hands on you, I’ll rip your heart from your chest with my bare hands,’ she thought. ‘Get out of my head. Now.’

“And what are her feelings about SHIELD?” Fury asked, never looking away from her face. 

“Well,” the disembodied voice said dryly, “she wants to kill me, but she trusts Barton as much as she can trust anyone, and she doesn’t bear SHIELD any particular ill-will despite the fact that we’ve kept her locked up for a week. I think she might work as an asset, if you give her the right handler.” 

“Are you trying to prove I can’t hide anything from you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “The mind-reader just told you I wasn’t lying.”

“You _were_ lying,” Fury said, and she smiled.

“Not about the important things.”

“You lied about why you killed the Winter Soldier. How is that not important?”

She shrugged, tamping down the rush of anger at the telepath for uncovering that particular lie. “A foolish attempt at defecting to America sounded better than being put down like a mad dog. Besides, a woman needs her secrets.”

Fury stared at her for a long moment. “You met Coulson.”

“Barton’s handler? Yes.” 

“How’d you like him as your handler?” 

She watched him, waiting for the punch-line.

“The punch-line is how little SHIELD pays,” the telepath remarked. “I hope you saved up from your mercenary days.” 

“If you don’t get out of my head, I’ll throw my chair through that mirror,” she said without inflection. Then she refocused on Fury. “Coulson’s acceptable.” 

“Then welcome to SHIELD, Miss Romanoff. On a probationary period, of course.” 

She couldn’t help it; she laughed. “Romanoff?” Barton had mentioned something about the mangling of her name in the SHIELD records, but she hadn’t realized it was quite so terrible. “Natalia Romanova, Director.”

Fury’s expression didn’t change. “Think of it as a new lease on life. Natalia Romanova, assassin and mercenary. Natasha Romanoff, SHIELD asset.”

“And assassin,” she said, because what other skills could she bring to SHIELD? Still, perhaps it would be an interesting change of pace. She could always walk if working for SHIELD didn’t work out. 

‘And if you’re still in my head, I really will kill you,’ she said inside her head. The telepath didn’t answer. 

“I have two conditions,” she said. 

Fury looked almost amused. “Do you really think you’re in the position to make demands?”

“I have two conditions,” she repeated evenly. In a slow, deliberate movement, she placed her hands on the table and spread them, showing the lack of cuffs. She’d undone them about halfway through her story. 

Fury didn’t blink, just raised an eyebrow as both the psychologist and the interrogator went still. “The conditions?”

“You will not use me for experiments to create another serum. You will burn my body when I die.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Fury leaned back and let out a harsh bark of laughter. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. My bosses might scream, but as long as I’m director of SHIELD, you have my word that we won’t use you to create another serum and that we’ll burn your body when you die.”   

She didn’t really trust him, but if he went back on that promise, she knew, deep in her belly, that Barton would break her out and let her go. She leaned forward, offered Fury a mirthless smile which he returned. 

She reached out a hand to Fury. 

“Hello, Director Fury. I’m Natasha Romanoff,” she said. 

The name fell awkwardly off her tongue, but she’d adjust. She always did.


	4. the season of scars and of wounds in the heart

[Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.]

 

* * *

_Six years later-_  

“Come on,” Stark whined, sounding like a child denied a treat. He trailed after Natasha as she stalked into the mansion’s kitchen. “Pepper, Cap, tell her that movie nights aren’t optional.”

Pepper, clad in the Iron Man pajamas Stark had given her for her birthday, sat at the table sipping at a cup of tea.

“Pepper, Steve, back me up here,” Stark said, frowning.

Pepper ignored him. Steve did the same, not bothering to even look up from his sketchbook.

“Your taste in movies is terrible,” Natasha said. She contemplated going to the archery range, where Clint would be and where Stark was banned. No, Natasha decided. She wasn’t going to retreat.

“It is not!” Stark said, sounding offended.

Natasha turned and stared at him.

“Tony. Remember what happened the last time you chose the movie?” Steve asked without looking up from his sketchbook.  

“Okay, so in retrospect, _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ was a bad idea,” Stark admitted. He grimaced. “But lesson learned-- if I want to keep my movie theater intact, I shouldn’t choose movies that piss off Barton. This time I’ll run the movie by Pepper first, I swear! Everyone’ll watch something that’s Pepper-approved, right?”

“Thank you for volunteering me for these things, Tony,” Pepper said dryly.

“I only volunteer you because you’re awesome,” Stark said. It might have been meant as a joke, but the poorly concealed sincerity of his words made his declaration into something sweet and almost tender.

Natasha turned towards Steve to give Stark and Pepper some semblance of privacy. “What are you drawing?” she asked, sitting down in the chair next to Steve.

Some color crept into Steve’s cheeks. It always puzzled Natasha how Steve could be confident as Captain America but self-conscious about his artwork. “I was.... Well,” he said, trailing off as he considered his words. “I’ve been drawing memories.” He paused again.

Natasha waited.

“I don’t have any photographs,” Steve said quietly. “I thought I’d draw what I could remember while the memories were still fresh.”

If Natasha were Pepper, she would probably reach out and squeeze Steve’s hand, say something like, “Oh, Steve, that’s sweet.”

“Tell Stark you want an art studio,” she said instead.

Steve blinked. “An art studio?”

“He’s built Clint a state-of-the-art archery range and given Banner three floors of labs,” Natasha reminded him. “An art studio would be a far easier task.”

“I don’t want--” Steve began awkwardly, but Pepper was already smiling.

“A studio! Natasha, you’re a genius.”

“Hey,” Stark objected. “ _I’m_ the only certified genius around here.”

Natasha stared at him again.

“Well, in this kitchen at least,” he muttered, and then squinted at Steve. “I can do an art studio. Work with Pepper and get me a plan.”

Steve looked even more uncomfortable. “Famous artists have studios. I just like to draw,” he said.

“Don’t sell yourself short. You would’ve gotten into art school if you’d been able to afford it,” Pepper said, earning stares from everyone but especially Steve. Sadness briefly darkened her features. “Phil liked to share random Captain America facts with me.”

There was a moment of heavy silence.

Stark forced a smile. “Yeah, well, Cap, let me know what you need, and I can whip up a studio. It has to be easier than Barton’s archery range.”

Pepper smiled at Steve. “I’ve got a meeting at ten, but tonight we should talk, see what type of studio might suit you best. And I’ll give you a list of some great art stores.”

“Thank you,” Steve said. The redness was fading from his face, and he managed a genuine smile back.

“May I see what you’re drawing?” Pepper asked.

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “All right, though I’m still a little rusty….” He nudged the sketchbook across the table.

Natasha studied Steve’s drawings from the corner of her eye as Pepper began to flip through the sketchbook. Steve was right-- he was rusty, the first few drawings done by a slightly shaky hand, but as the sketchbook progressed, his talent returned, faces and scenery coming to life in black and white.

Pepper paused on one. “This was during the war?” she asked quietly. Her fingertips hovered just above the page, and Natasha gave into temptation and leaned closer.

There were no explosions or even weapons in the sketch, but the man leaning against a wall held himself with a weary tension that came from being in the middle of a battlefield. One hand held a still-smoking cigarette; the other was pressed against his eyes, Steve having caught him in a moment of exhaustion or perhaps grief.

“Turn the page,” Steve said. His voice was a whisper. “It’s a better picture of him.”

Pepper flipped to the next drawing.

Like the others, it was also in black and white, but Natasha didn’t need colors to recall the particular blueness of those eyes and darkness of that hair, to recognize the half-sarcastic slant of those lips, to know those familiar features.

James looked young in the drawing. There were still lines of pain etched in the corners of his eyes, but he reclined against a stopped Jeep, loose-limbed and content in a way Natasha had only seen him during the too-brief moments when they’d been in bed together.

“Natasha,” Steve said. His voice was loud.

She blinked. At some point, she had tipped Steve’s chair backwards and pinned him to the floor by kneeling on his chest. One of her knives pressed against the skin next to his right eye, turning the skin white but not drawing blood.

Steve didn’t look alarmed; instead he actually looked concerned for her. His hands rested on the floor, palms upward in a gesture of surrender. “Natasha,” he said, softer. “Put the knife away.”

Her hand wanted to tremble; she didn’t allow herself to move an inch. “How do you know him?” she said. Her throat hurt; she must have been shouting.

A crease appeared between Steve’s eyes. “Natasha--”

“Nat?” Clint said from behind her, quiet and worried. Stark must have called for him as soon as Natasha had attacked. “Nat, you need to speak English.”

“English?” she said. Oh, she’d been yelling in Russian, hadn’t she? She swallowed. “Did I hurt you?” she asked in English, standing slowly and setting the knife on the table.

Steve telegraphed each movement as he got to his feet and kept carefully out of reach. “Takes more than tipping over a chair to hurt me,” he said, attempting a smile. Despite the gesture, his eyes were still dark with concern.

She saw Stark from the corner of her eye; he had Pepper behind him, both pressed up against the kitchen counter.

Clint moved carefully into her line of sight, his hands open and empty. He met her eyes and didn’t quite smile in sympathy. “Trigger Xavier missed or just a bad memory?” he asked.

Natasha felt some of the tension in her ease. At least Clint understood. “He has a picture of James,” she said.

“James?” Clint said, expression going blank with surprise even as Steve stared at her like she’d, well, just attacked him with a knife.

“How do you know about Bucky?” Steve demanded.

“Bucky?” Natasha said. That couldn’t possibly be James’s real name. Even if it was a nickname, it seemed absurd. She tried to imagine James responding to it, and failed. “I knew him.”

“You couldn’t have known him,” Steve said. “He died in the war. I _saw_ him die. I couldn’t save--” He stopped, voice breaking, but one of his hands twitched at his side. For the first time, Natasha saw Steve look small and defeated. Quieter, he said, “Bucky died.”  

_“Hands up, sweetheart,” James said, the gun aimed at her chest. “You don’t touch Steve.”_

“I knew him,” she said. “He was at Department X. He was-- he trained me. They called him the Winter Soldier. He was Russia’s finest assassin.”

Steve shook his head in disbelief. “The Winter Soldier? Department X? It couldn’t be him. Bucky was a soldier, not a killer. And he wouldn’t work for the Soviets willingly.” 

_“I don’t work for the Soviets. I sure as hell don’t work for them when they want to kill my best friend.”_

“It wasn’t willingly,” she said. Each word hurt to say, like she’d swallowed glass. “Department X had a programming chamber where they-- they were very good at making people believe they were something they weren’t.” Her throat was tight, panic a hole in the pit of her stomach that grew with every sentence.

She had to get away from Steve looking shattered and lost, escape this room too few exits.

“Uh, as much as I hate to admit it, this sounds like something Fury needs to hear,” Stark said. For Stark, he sounded almost subdued. “I mean, Captain America’s best friend being brainwashed into a Russian assassin? That…sounds like something right up SHIELD’s alley.”

Natasha didn’t look at him. She looked instead at the growing horror on Steve’s face.

“Yes,” she agreed, forcing the word out.

“What happened to him?” Steve demanded, his voice strained. “Where is he now?”

She looked to Clint, and met the same sick realization in his eyes. She licked her lips, resisted the urge to close her eyes like a coward. “He’s dead,” she said. It was giving into cowardice, but she didn’t look back at Steve as she spoke.

He didn’t react loudly; rather, it was an absence of sound that immediately followed her declaration, his breath caught in his chest for a minute, then two. Then his breath escaped in a soft, bitten-back sound of pain. “You’re telling me he died not knowing who he was?”

Natasha had to get away from that wrecked voice, had to get away before she’d be forced to explain that she’d killed Captain America’s best friend.

“Nat,” Clint said, otherwise motionless. Something in her eyes must have warned him, because he stepped aside and gave her a clear exit.

She ran, and didn’t stop running until she was at one of her safe-houses on the outskirts of the city.

It was one of seven safe-houses she’d kept from SHIELD, and one of the three she’d kept from even Clint and Coulson. She crouched, breathing hard, pretending that she was shaking from the adrenaline and not from her own weakness. After a long moment, she dragged herself over to the book case with the hidden compartment.

Six hours later, Anya Volkova was boarding a flight to Stockholm.  

 

* * *

 

The mansion would have been impressive if Natasha hadn’t just come from Stark’s, but it was the security she found the most lacking. Natasha broke in with barely any effort.

She found Tatiana reclining by her indoor pool, one arm covering her face as she dozed. Natasha crept soundlessly across the tiles until she was a few feet away. Then she stopped.

“Getting soft in your old age, Tatiana,” she said, using their common tongue. (It was always a little bit soothing to speak Russian. Even after years with SHIELD, English occasionally grated upon the ear.) “Twenty years ago, you would have heard me entering the room, much less actually approaching you.”

Tatiana’s eyes snapped open. A second later, she had a small pistol in her hand. “And you’re getting senile, thinking sneaking up on me was a good idea.” Pale green eyes studied Natasha warily.

Natasha held up her hands, showing they were empty. She wasn’t surprised when Tatiana didn’t look reassured. After all, this close Natasha could likely kick the pistol from Tatiana’s grip and then kill with her bare hands before Tatiana could wonder what had happened. “I’m not here to kill you. I’m here for information.”

Tatiana didn’t lower her gun, but her forehead creased with confusion. The serum hadn’t slowed her aging as much as it had for Natasha, Natasha saw; there were hints of silver in Tatiana’s hair and crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes that deepened as she frowned. “I’ve been out of the game longer than you, Natalia. Now I teach rich paranoid people how to defend themselves from people like us. What would I know that you don’t?”

“You might know of any surviving records on the Winter Soldier.”  

Tatiana looked even more confused. “The Winter Soldier? Why do you need information about him? He’s been dead--”

“Tatiana. Do you remember the rumors about where he came from?” When the other woman slowly nodded, Natasha offered her a mirthless smile. “They were all wrong.”

Tatiana didn’t lower her gun, but her wariness shifted to cautious interest. “What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t Russian. He was an American soldier Rodchenko experimented on and brainwashed.” Before Tatiana could react, Natasha held up her hand. “It sounds unbelievable, I know, but I met someone who knew him before the Red Room, Tatiana. I want-- I want to bring the Winter Soldier’s bones back to America, to give whatever information I can gather to his best friend.”  

Tatiana stared at her. “Now who’s gotten soft?” she said, a note of wonder in her voice. “You sound…guilty.”

Natasha didn’t let her expression change. “I killed him. I owe him a debt.”

“You can’t owe the dead, Natalia,” Tatiana said, almost gently. “And we can’t spend the rest of our lives trying to make amends.”

Natasha didn’t respond. Perhaps Tatiana chose to ignore the red in her ledger, but Natasha didn’t. “Do you know anything that will help me?”

Tatiana’s lips pursed as she thought hard for a long moment. “Not really,” she said at last, apologetic. “I had very little contact with him, and after his death, there was a silent understanding around the department not to speak of him--” She paused, her expression tightening. “--especially not around you. After how long they kept you in the Red Room afterwards, we didn’t know how you’d react to even hearing his name….”

Natasha frowned. “How long they kept me?” she repeated. “They removed my childhood memories. You remember that mission in Odessa when I didn’t remember the lullaby? Taking those memories would have only taken a few hours, a day at the most.”

Something flickered in Tatiana’s eyes then, a look that made the hairs on the back of Natasha’s neck rise. “Natalia, you were with Rodchenko for a week.”

“A _week_?” An incredulous laugh escaped her. “No one spent a week with him.”

Tatiana bit at the corner of her lip, her brow creasing again. “I remember it, Natasha,” she said slowly. “I was recovering from an injury, and saw Orlov go storming from his office, cursing. The next day, Marta said she saw you, Orlov, and Rodchenko go into Orlov’s office. Then Orlov was dead and you were in the Red Room, and no one saw you again for a week.”

“No,” Natasha said. She had to speak loudly over the sudden buzzing in her ears. “You must be mistaken. _I_ came to Orlov, with the Winter Soldier’s bionic arm as an apology for killing J-- the Winter Soldier. Orlov brought in Rodchenko.”

“Natalia.” Tatiana’s voice was quiet, so low that Natasha took a half-step forward to hear her better. “Your nose is bleeding.”

Natasha touched her nose, stared at her bloody fingertips. Realization swept over her like a dark wave, and she laughed. She couldn’t help it. The sound, half-bitter, half-an emotion she couldn’t put a name to, made Tatiana wince.

“It _was_ a week, wasn’t it?” she said quietly. “Tatiana, I remember-- I remember killing him. He said he would kill me before he would return to the Red Room, and I shot him. I _know_ I shot him--”

The buzzing was a roar now, so loud she couldn’t even hear her own voice. She closed her eyes.

_James was crying, though she didn’t think he was aware of it, tears streaming down his face. He shook his head. “I’m warning you one more time. I love you, but I’ll kill us both before I ever go back.”_

_“You don’t love me,” she said, not letting her hands shake even though they wanted to._

_He nodded to himself, the smile gone, replaced by an expression she couldn’t decipher. “That’s right. Love doesn’t exist in the Red Room, does it, Natshechka? So I suppose this won’t be difficult for you,” he said, and raised the knife to throw at her throat._

_It was an old gun. When she fired, the recoil was like a punch to the shoulder. She dropped it. It hit the ground a second after James did, a loud thud followed by a still louder one._

_Blood took a moment to well up from the wound, but then the blood began to spread and kept spreading across James’s chest. She watched the blood patch widen, because otherwise she would have to look at his face and see his expression._

_“Damn it, James. You promised no foolishness,” she whispered. Each word fell from her lips like a stone._

_From the floor, she heard James make a sound that would have been laughter if he hadn’t still been crying. “Natalia, if there’s any mercy Orlov and Rodchenko haven’t beaten out of you-- let me die.” The words were faint, with an underlying breathlessness that meant the bullet had likely nicked his lung._

_She looked at him then, met his pleading expression with a blank look of her own. “No,” she said, and watched all the animation fade from his face along with the color. With quick, efficient movements that he was too weak to fight off, she bound the wound and tied his legs and hands._

_Then she turned to the window._

_“Natalia. He’s innocent,” James whispered, choking on the words._

_She picked up the gun.  “Since when has that ever mattered?” she said. Then she leapt through the window after Nemov._

She’d fallen to the floor, she realized distantly.

The tiles were cool against her shoulder as she pressed her fists against her eyes and rocked back and forth, trying to shake the sensation of someone slowly dissolving her brain with acid, trying to banish the unsurprised look in James’s eyes as she’d betrayed him.

She could taste blood in her mouth.

“Tatiana?” someone asked in Swedish-- another woman, her voice high and sharp with concern. “What’s going on?”

Natasha had rolled into a crouch and pulled a knife before she’d consciously realized what she’d done. It was only Tatiana’s even sharper, “Natalia!” that stayed her shaking hand. She blinked, trying to get her eyes to focus.

Another woman stood a few feet away. She was tall and impossibly beautiful, like she’d just stepped off a poster promoting Sweden. “Tatiana? What’s going on?” the woman asked, her worried gaze darting between Tatiana and Natasha.

“Emelie, stay back,” Tatiana said sharply. “This is Natalia. She’s ex-military too, but she’s…been having trouble adjusting.”

“Oh,” Emelie said, some of the concern easing to sympathy. She bit her lip. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just go wait in our bedroom. I’ll take care of her and explain later.”

“All right.” Emelie retreated, shooting Tatiana one last worried look before she closed the door behind her.

“Emelie?” Natasha forced out, spitting out some of the blood in her mouth.

“My wife,” Tatiana said, in a careful tone that suggested Tatiana wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of Natasha’s weak state and break a bone or two if Natalia had anything unpleasant to say about that.

Another laugh scraped Natasha’s throat. “Who did you say had gotten soft?”

“Shut up,” Tatiana said, but there was an almost a smile in her voice.

Something soft and fluffy was pressed into her free hand. Natasha blinked down at the towel.

“Your face is a bloody mess,” Tatiana said. “Clean yourself up while I try to think of who might know what really happened to the Winter Soldier.”

Natasha did, though each movement felt sluggish and difficult, like she was moving underwater. When she’d wiped her face clean, she looked up in time to see Tatiana’s eyes narrow in consideration. “What?” she asked.

“You’re going to hate my suggestion,” Tatiana said, but there was a hint of humor in the slant of her lips.

Natasha stared at her a moment, then sighed. “It’s Bullski, isn’t it?”

Tatiana shrugged. “He’s made quite a name for himself as a mercenary, I’ve heard. And he’s the only one I know who’s stayed in Russia.”

“Wonderful,” Natasha said sourly. After a moment, though, she brightened a little at a sudden thought. “Well, perhaps I will get to beat the information from him.”

“If you do, throw in a few punches on my behalf,” Tatiana said dryly, and then offered Natasha a hand.

After a pause, Natasha sheathed her knife and accepted the help upright.

“Natalia,” Tatiana said quietly as Natasha turned to leave. “I hear you work for SHIELD now.”

“I’m doing this on my own,” Natasha said in answer to the unasked question. “If SHIELD ever comes to call, it will not be on my account.” She offered Tatiana a smile that was only half-mocking. “Besides, what would they want a washed-up assassin who’s so out of the game she’s married?”

“Go to hell,” Tatiana said, but she was laughing.

 

* * *

 

Natasha tracked Bullski down seconds after he’d put a bullet in the head of the man who’d been favored to win the popular vote in a small African country.

“What, did they double-book?” Bullski grunted, eyes narrowing at the sight of her.

“No, I’m here to speak with you,” Natasha said as they blended into the screaming crowd. She couldn’t help adding, “Besides, if we’d been double-booked, I would have beaten you here and killed the man a bit more subtly. A bullet to the head in the middle of a speech, Boris? _Really_?”

Bullski grunted. “Contract didn’t ask for subtlety.”

“Of course it didn’t,” Natasha said, unsurprised. “If it had, you probably wouldn’t have taken it.”

“I’d almost forgotten what a bitch you are, Romanova,” Bullski said, snorting with amusement. He ducked into a restaurant and signaled that he wanted a private table for two. “Or is it Romanoff now? Fucking Americans, with their ridiculous names.”

“Says the man who goes by the code name Titanium Man,” Natasha said. She sat down and waited until he followed suit. “I think we’ve had enough pleasant banter.” She ignored Bullski’s incredulous, “Pleasant?” and stared at him. “I need to know about the Winter Soldier.”

“What’s there to know? The one-armed freak’s dead.” Bullski started to chuckle, but the sound caught in his throat at her cold look.

“He’s not dead,” she said. “Or at least, he didn’t die when we were told.”

“Huh,” Bullski said, leaning back in his chair. “I’d heard rumors, but I never thought anything of them. After all, you said you killed him, and you don’t lie about that sort of thing.”

“I thought I had killed him,” Natasha said evenly.

Bullski’s expression twitched, something not quite sympathy in his eyes. Then the brief look was gone and he just looked disgusted. “Fucking Rodchenko. Always wished I’d put a bullet in that twisted bastard’s brain.”

“The rumors?” Natasha prompted.

“There were rumors that they’d put the Winter Soldier on ice, only woke him up for certain missions.” Bullski paused. “And I’ve seen a few kills over the years that reminded me of him. Give me a couple hours and I can figure out if there’s any pattern.”

She didn’t thank him, didn’t acknowledge the foolish flutter of hope in her stomach. “How much?”

He snorted. “What, you didn’t think I’d give you the intel out of the goodness of my heart? Well, if it _is_ him, the Winter Soldier’s part of my competition, so for that and the pleasure of your company, I’ll knock down the price to five hundred thousand.”

“Fine. Half now, half when I’ve confirmed your intel is useful.”

Bullski shook his head. For a second she thought he was going to demand the whole thing upfront, but then he said, “I still can’t figure out why you got out of the game, Romanova. Not that I’m not grateful that you are, but it never made sense to me, you becoming one of SHIELD’s lapdogs.”

Natasha didn’t bother answering. He wouldn’t believe her anyway, would laugh if she tried to explain how it’d felt to have Barton, his bow pointed at her chest, look at her and see something other than a killer. Instead, she pushed a napkin at him. “Give me the account information. I’ll go wire the first half, meet you back at your hotel in five hours to get the intel.”

Bullski scribbled the digits on the napkin, and she tucked it into her purse. She rose to her feet, ignoring the puzzled waiter who’d come to ask for their order.

“Don’t you need to know the name of my hotel?” Bullski asked.

She flashed him a derisive smile. “Please. I might be SHIELD’s lapdog, but I’m still a professional. Five hours.”

“Bitch,” Bullski muttered as she left, his tone admiring.  

 

* * *

 

In the years since the surviving operatives had been sold off by Orlov’s successor to the highest bidders, there had been thirteen deaths similar to the Winter Soldier’s style. Seven of the thirteen could be traced, in rumors only, to a Russian weapons-manufacturing company called Kronas. Natasha recognized the name-- SHIELD had been trying to gather useful intelligence on its owner, Lukin, for years.

The Kronas headquarters were in the same compound as his largest manufacturing building. It took Natasha two days to scout both buildings, and another four to come up with a viable plan.

Each day’s delay physically hurt, a knot in the pit of her stomach that grew with every passing hour. She didn’t allow herself to rush. If James was still alive, Natasha would rescue him without making any foolish mistakes out of a sense of urgency.

Early on the seventh day, she closed her eyes, offering up a wordless apology to Clint. He’d risked everything to get her into SHIELD, and now she’d thrown his mercy back in his face.

An hour later, Natasha waited in the kitchen of Doctor Victor Polzin, helping herself to the use of his coffee maker.

When Polzin stumbled blearily into the kitchen, sniffing curiously at the air, he saw her and stopped dead.

She lowered the cup of coffee and kept the gun aimed at his chest. “You, Doctor Polzin, will cooperate, or you will die,” she said dispassionately. “Do you understand?”

“I--” Polzin looked around, as though there was anything, anyone who could help him. After a moment, his shoulders slumped and he sagged against the doorframe. “Yes. W-what do you want?”

“You interest me, doctor. Why does Lukin need a psychiatrist who specializes in repressed memories on his payroll?”

All the color leeched from his face, and the twisted lump in Natasha’s stomach slowly began to unknot. She was right. James was here. “P-please, I don’t-- he’ll kill me!”

“Doctor,” Natasha said, smiling in a way that dragged a whimper from Polzin’s lips. “Lukin may kill you, but I will make you beg for death. Now tell me where you keep the Winter Soldier when Lukin doesn’t need him.”

“T-the Winter Soldier? I never knew w-what he was called…I’ll cooperate!” Polzin added hastily when her eyes began to narrow. “I just-- you have to have certain clearance….” He trailed off as she slid his ID card across to him and then pulled out a nearly identical one with her photo and a false name and flashed it at him. “Oh. Well, I-I see you have everything, uh, thought out, so l-let’s just get this over with.”

“Excellent,” Natasha said, still smiling. “I knew you were an intelligent man.”

Time seemed to blur around her, but hyper-vigilance made details both major and minor press against her senses. She could see the way the guard squinted at her ID card, turning it over in his hand before he nodded and handed it back at her, his fingertips rough like sandpaper against hers, but the walk to the chamber where James was being held was a blur.

James’s expression was blank even in sleep, the liquid of the stasis chamber turning his features a pale sickly blue. They had built him another arm, this one apparently able to withstand stasis.

He didn’t look quite real, more like a mannequin than a real man, even as Polzin punched something into the machine that drained the liquid and made a muscle twitch in James’s jaw.

“Wake him up,” Natasha said.

“It will take some time, if you want his mind intact when he wakes,” Polzin mumbled even as his hands darted and pressed blinking buttons. “He’s been in stasis for two years. He’s always more confused after long periods of inactivity.”

Natasha felt her lips curl away from her teeth. “Inactivity? Is that what you call waking him up to kill Lukin’s enemies?”

Polzin cringed, but didn’t answer.

After what seemed like hours, James’s eyelids flickered, and he coughed violently, instinctively turning his head to retch out the stasis goop that had gotten into his mouth.

“James,” Natasha said, leaning over him, not daring to touch. “James, wake up. I’m here.” She spoke the words softly in Russian.

Distracted, she didn’t hear Polzin’s retreating footsteps until he was almost to the door. “Guards!” Polzin screamed, his voice high with panic as he struggled with the door. “Guards! G--” He collapsed against the door, voiceless as he clutched at the knife in his throat.

She went to the door, kicked his corpse aside, and listened. She could hear voices sounding the alarm. “Damn,” she spat, and began barricading the door.

When she turned, James was coughing again, his eyes half-open. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead, some of the stasis goop running down his face as he struggled upright.

She rushed to his side. “James. James, it’s me. You have been in stasis for two years. Do you remember what happened?”

James stared at her, a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “I--” He coughed violently. “I remember.”

The tension in her shoulders eased. “James--”

“I remember you shot me,” James continued tonelessly. Then he punched her with his bionic hand.

She fell, landing heavily and having to scramble rather than roll out of reach. “James,” she said, ignoring the pain of a molar he’d knocked loose, working around the blood in her mouth. “I know you’re angry, but I am here to help you.”

“You gave me back to Rodchenko. You knew what he’d do to me,” he said, rage thickening his voice.

“I didn’t know!” she argued. She switched to English. “I didn’t know who you really were, James, what Rodchenko had done to your mind! I know now. That’s why I’m here.”

James stared at her. “I almost wish I could trust you,” he said, and his voice sounded like neither the James she’d known nor the brief glimpse of Bucky she’d experienced. This voice was weary, and almost regretful. Then he went to the door and broke down the barricade.

He stepped outside. She could hear shouts, then screams.

Natasha struggled to her feet, and spat out the tooth James had knocked loose. Then she pulled out a knife. Lukin’s security force was impressive. James might need some help.

She found, when she moved slowly around the door and into the corridor, that she’d underestimated James’s rage. “If you do not trust me, at least believe that I want to escape from here as well. I know a way out.”

James smiled, and it was the Winter Soldier’s smile and yet not. Blood was in his hair, speckled across his face. “So do I, Natalia. It’s called the front door,” he said.

Then he shot her.

She’d already started to move when he’d raised the gun, but even the Black Widow couldn’t doge a bullet fired by the Winter Soldier. The impact knocked her off her feet.

She landed on her back, blinking up at the ceiling. A slow ache spread across her chest. Her thoughts muddled as her vision darkened. Despite the pain, a smile curved her lips. “Matching bullet wounds,” she said, hearing the dreamy quality of her voice and too distant to be concerned about it. “Some might call that romantic, if they were fools.”

James crouched next to her. She could see the tightness in his jaw, and his eyes were hooded. He pressed something that felt like fabric into her hand, and then forced her hand against the wound. The agony shot through her, briefly clearing her mind as James said, “Keep pressure on the wound, and you’ll probably live long enough for Lukin to kill you.”

“James,” she gasped. She couldn’t let him leave. Did he even know what year it was? She grabbed his wrist with her free hand, ignored his cold expression. “Steve-- he’s alive--” Blood had filled her mouth. She choked on it.

James’s expression had gone soft and vulnerable for a second, something like yearning in his face before his expression hardened. “Steve died in the war. I know that much.”

“No,” she forced out. It was agony to speak, but she continued. “New York-- SHIELD-- Captain America. Ask for him.”

“If you weren’t already dying, I’d kill you for that lie, Natalia,” James said.

There was a roaring in her ears again, roaring that sounded like explosions. Odd, losing unconsciousness had never sounded like this, not even when she’d almost bled out that time in Serbia. “New York,” she whispered, or tried to. It was hard to breathe, harder still to coax enough oxygen to speak. “James. Go to New York. Steve.”

He didn’t answer. She closed her eyes in defeat.

Distantly, like voices overheard from another room, she heard someone yell, “Bucky!”

“Steve,” James said, then added something that could’ve been, “Thought you were dead.”

She tried to open her eyes, but her eyes couldn’t focus. Besides, the man embracing or fighting James couldn’t be Steve. He wasn’t wearing his uniform.

“Nat. We’re going to get you out of here. Nat?” Clint. Even dying, she’d recognize his voice.

She attempted a smile. “Bullski,” she said. She should have known. Clint smoothed her hair away from her face, and she endured the gesture for a moment. “How…much?” 

Natasha could hear the grin in his voice even through the buzzing. “I think he was going to ask for a quarter million, but after Steve broke his nose, he gave everything up for free. Now just stop talking and let Banner take a look at you, okay?”

“Scientist. Not. Doctor,” she protested, too weak to even tense at the thought of Banner’s hands on her. He might have proven that he could control the Hulk ninety percent of the time, but she still feared and distrusted that other ten percent.

“True, but I’m the closest thing to a doctor we have, so you’ll have to put up with me,” Banner said dryly. His hands were warm and gentle as he touched the area around the wound, but even the soft touch hurt.

She didn’t make a sound, but Banner said, “I’m sorry. This is going to hurt no matter what.”

“Yes,” she whispered. Darkness moved over her, and the pain receded as she lost consciousness.   

* * *

When Natasha woke up after surgery, Steve was sitting in the chair next to her bed.

“You should have let me come with you,” he said without preamble.

“Didn’t Clint tell you?” she said hoarsely. She must be on the strong painkillers, because her thoughts wouldn’t focus and she couldn’t get the taste of cotton out of her mouth.

“That you’d killed Bucky? Yeah, he mentioned that, but since Bucky’s alive and in SHIELD custody right now, I’m kind of wondering what the real story was.”

“Implanted memory. I thought I’d killed him.”

She watched understanding bloom across Steve’s face, ease some of the tension in his broad shoulders. She licked her lips, and he made a face at himself before he offered her a cup of water. She let him hold it to her lips as she drank slowly, trying not to resent how her one shoulder was too wrapped in bandages and the other arm too shaky to be of use. Once she’d drunk the entire cup, she cleared her throat.

“I went to retrieve his body, and get some answers for you.”

“And you figured out he was still alive.” Steve shook his head. His eyes were too bright.

She looked down at the white sheets, unwilling to be witness to Captain America’s tears. After a minute, he cleared his throat and she glanced at him. Any trace of tears was gone.

“Thank you,” he said. “Bucky says he’s sorry about shooting you, by the way.”

“No, he didn’t,” Natasha said immediately.

Steve frowned, half-sheepish at being caught in the lie, half-mystified, she supposed, that James hadn’t apologized. “No, he didn’t.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I deserved it.”

Steve’s expression said he doubted that, but he didn’t argue.

She blinked, some of the fuzziness in her head clearing enough for an unpleasant realization. “He’s in SHIELD custody?” When Steve nodded, she frowned. “What does Fury plan to do with him?”

Steve looked down at his hands. “The Winter Soldier killed a lot of people,” he said quietly. “Fury’s trying to talk the Council out of prosecuting Bucky for those crimes, but--”

Natasha spat out a Russian curse. “Get me out of this bed,” she demanded, struggling to sit up, ignoring the way of dizziness and burst of throbbing pain in her chest even the painkillers couldn’t dull. “I will go to the Council myself, tell them that he was brainwashed--”

“Natasha, stop,” Steve said. “The Council won’t lay a hand on him. I promise.”

She sagged against the pillow. “How much has James told you?” She judged by his expression that it wasn’t much. “Tell them, if it is necessary, that he broke free of his programming once and immediately tried to escape and return to America.” It was not the whole truth, but it would do.

Steve smiled at that. “I will. Now get some rest. A few inches closer, and the bullet would’ve hit your heart,” Steve said, and then looked puzzled when she laughed.

She didn’t bother explaining that the Winter Soldier never missed.  

* * *

Clint was next to visit her. “Next time, you take me with you,” he said, eyes flat, expression brooking no argument. Then some dark humor touched his features. He shook his head. “Jesus, Nat, I’d heard you were a professional. What kind of pro gets shot by the target she’s extracting?”

“Go to hell,” Natasha said mildly.

Clint grinned and threw himself upon the foot of the bed. It was a seemingly careless gesture, but she knew it had been done with great precision to keep from jostling her.

“I’m a little worried,” he said. “Are you getting slow in your old age? Used to be you could dodge bullets as good as Neo.”

“Shut up, Barton,” she said, letting some of the fondness touch her voice. “You’ve already had enough problems with SHIELD after Loki.”

Clint shrugged easily. “Well, they couldn’t very well punish me after Captain America decided to rogue and go after you. Be a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

Natasha let herself smile. “Good.”

“Fury’s still arguing with the Council, but since Cap’s backing him up, I’m pretty sure Barnes is safe,” Clint said. He snorted. “I’d like to see anyone try to touch Barnes without Cap’s permission. He’s been looking like he’ll punch anyone who so much as looks at Barnes funny.”

“Good,” she said again, softer, and Clint grinned at her.  

“By the way, I think Stark has video of Cap punching Bullski. I’ll bring it next time.”

“That I would pay to see,” she said, and then relaxed against her pillows as Clint began to regale her with the marvelous misadventures of the Avengers going rogue.

* * *

Fury was a harried-looking third. He stuck his head in, glared at her, and snapped, “First, the Council will pry Barnes from my cold, dead fingers, so stop worrying. Second, Xavier’s coming in to see Barnes, so we’ll get any triggers out of his head. Third, you go off-reservation like that again, and I’ll serve your head on a fucking platter to the Council. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Natasha said.

“I’m sure Barton is giving you fucking hour-by-hour updates, so don’t bother me,” Fury added, and slammed the door before she could answer.

* * *

Stark would have been her next visitor, except that she’d put him on her no-admittance list. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sound of his incredulous tirade for a good half-hour.

Then Pepper slipped inside, offering her a watery smile. “I just wanted to say hi, and see if there’s anything you need from the Avengers mansion,” she said, and then held up a bag. “I brought along some of your clothes. I figured you’d want to wear something other than a hospital gown.” Her gaze darted to the bandages, and then away.

“Thank you.” Natasha motioned for Pepper to sit down. They sat in silence for a moment, listening to Stark’s muffled yells. “How long will this tantrum of Stark’s last?”

Pepper rolled her eyes, and they shared an exasperated look, though Pepper’s had a trace of fondness that Natasha was quite certain hers didn’t contain.

“A while,” Pepper said. Something twisted in her face. “He’s got a thing about chest wounds.”

“Oh. Yes,” Natasha said. After a moment, she grimaced. “Fine. He can come in for five minutes, if you promise to drag him out by his ear if he makes any jokes or innuendos about my relationship with James.”

“I promise,” Pepper said, her expression clearing. She sprang to her feet.

Two minutes later, Pepper offered Natasha an apologetic smile and dragged Stark from the room.

* * *

Thor arrived the next morning, bearing a laptop and a box of DVDs. “Lady Natasha, I thought you might enjoy these operas while you recover,” he said, beaming at her. “I am pleased to see you already looking much better!”

She smiled back, and Stark doubtless would have been shocked to find it was a genuine smile. Coulson had enjoyed the occasional night out to the opera with her, but after his death, it had been Clint who’d gamely suffered through them for several months until Natasha had discovered Thor’s fascination with “Midgardian” theater.

“Thank you,” she said. When he set the box down and looked hopefully at her, she gave in, pointing to the chair. “If you have time, sit and watch one with me?”

“Gladly,” Thor said, grinning. He let her select the opera, and then set up the laptop so that they could both watch easily. Before he pressed play, he paused. In a voice that was unusually quiet, he said, “Do not worry for your friend, Lady Natasha. The captain will not let him to come to harm. And I have made my feelings plain that a man whose mind has manipulated should not be persecuted for his crimes. Did they not see reason with Clinton?”

“SHIELD had Clint on probation for six months,” Natasha said. The words were sharper than she’d meant, but Thor didn’t look offended.

Instead, he nodded. “Yes, that is the very suggestion I made: probation. Let your friend be given time to be healed by SHIELD’s mind-menders and to prove himself worthy of joining the Avengers.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow even as his words warmed her. “Who said anything about James becoming an Avenger?”

Thor laughed, as though certain she was joking. “I saw his prowess in battle with my own eyes at Kronas, Lady Natasha. Once his mind is healed, he will make an excellent addition to the Avengers.”

Natasha thought about the look in James’s eyes as he’d shot her, the fact that Xavier had said he doubted he would be able to restore James’s memory completely to him. She didn’t smile. “He would be an excellent Avenger,” she agreed. “I think he might be more comfortable working for SHIELD.”

Thor nodded, looking thoughtful. “The captain said much the same when I suggested the idea to him.” He shrugged. “You two know him far better than I. Perhaps he would prefer SHIELD. Still, I look forward to fighting alongside him in the future, whether he is an Avenger or an agent.”

Natasha smiled, and said nothing.

After a moment, Thor nodded his understanding. He pressed play, and they both settled back to watch Tchaikovsky’s _Eugene Onegin_.  

* * *

Banner didn’t come to visit her. She was grateful, if only in the privacy of her own mind.

* * *

A week later, Steve entered her room, something hesitant in his face.

“What is it?” Natasha asked, alarm making her chest tighten and her injury twinge. “Has something--”

“Bucky’s fine,” Steve assured her. She bit back the flow of questions as he continued. “He’s still in SHIELD custody. Professor Xavier’s been spending a couple hours with him each day.”

“Then what is it?”

“Bucky asked for you.” Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, he asked for Natalia. Clint says that’s what you were called before SHIELD.”

“Yes,” she said, and then hesitated. Unease curdled her stomach. “What has he been told about me?”

“Just that you’ve been working with SHIELD for a number of years,” Steve said. “He understands the Cold War’s over, but I think he still thinks of it as you defecting.”

Natasha carefully shrugged her good shoulder. “In a way, I did.” She licked dry lips. “When will Fury let me see him?”

“Now, if your doctors will release you for a few hours,” he said. She couldn’t conceal her surprise at that, and he smiled crookedly. “It’s been the first request he’s made. I think Fury’s choosing to look at it as a sign of progress.”

“Yes, and it will be, right up to the moment that James breaks my neck,” Natasha said dryly.

She wasn’t prepared for Steve to look stricken at that, his face paling. “He wouldn’t do that,” he said defensively. “He was confused when he woke up--”

“Captain. I was joking,” she said. In fact, she hadn’t been, not entirely, but she wasn’t about to mention that when Steve was looking so horrified. Besides, she’d been trapped in this bed while Steve had been busy defending James to the Council. Anyone would be on edge after spending two weeks trying to knock some sense into _them_.

“Oh.” Steve looked relieved. Then he laughed awkwardly. “Of course you were.” He stepped towards the door. “I’ll go find your doctor.”

Once he’d left, Natasha closed her eyes, tried to nap. She’d need all her strength for this meeting.

* * *

She stepped into the cell, having to force herself to make noise as she walked. Steve had mentioned James didn’t deal well with people sneaking up on him.

Natasha lowered herself carefully onto the chair SHIELD had fixed into the floor. Even walking into SHIELD and into this room had exhausted her. She tried not to let it show. “James.”

“Natalia,” he said from his bed. His weary expression was remote, his voice toneless.

She made a show of looking around at their surroundings rather than the exhaustion in James’s face and the empty sleeve. Where had they taken his bionic arm? Stark was probably off somewhere tinkering with it, she thought sourly.

“This is a larger cell than I received when Hawkeye brought me in,” she said, speaking in English as Xavier had advised. “I’m trying to decide if I’m offended or not.”

Amusement made his eyes gleam. “They always did underestimate you.” There was his real accent she’d heard in that small room with Nemov, American with the sound of Brooklyn she’d come to recognize in Steve’s.  

“And they always regret it,” Natasha said. “What did you want from me? And if you say that you want to apologize, I am leaving.”

A smile struggled across his face before it finally bloomed into life as one of his real, crooked grins. “Understood. No, I wanted to ask you if this SHIELD deal is legit. Steve seems to trust these guys, but Steve’s always seen the best in everyone.” His voice soured at the end, his crooked smile twisting into a grimace.

Natasha wondered what Steve had said. That James wasn’t the Winter Soldier, that the blood was on Rodchenko and the others of Department X’s hands? James wouldn’t believe those words. She never had, even if she’d beaten it into Clint’s head that he wasn’t responsible for the deaths of the SHIELD agents during Loki’s attack.

“I have worked for SHIELD for seven years now, and so far they have kept their promises to me,” she said slowly.

“Promises?”

“Not to create a serum from my body, and to burn my body if I die.”

The crooked smile revived in a fainter guise. “Hard to know if they’ll hold to that second promise when you haven’t died yet.”

Natasha shrugged carefully. “Hawkeye will ensure they keep that promise.”

“Hawkeye. Guy with the bow?” When she nodded, James said, “Steve mentioned you two were close. Are you two…?” He trailed off, raising a suggestive eyebrow.

There was no jealousy in his voice. She told herself it was foolish to be angry that there wasn’t. “No,” she said, and didn’t elaborate. Let him wonder. “What has SHIELD promised you?”

“Probationary status as a SHIELD agent. Confined to the city for the first six months, with a provision to upgrade to taking assignments outside the city should Fury and Xavier deem it safe.” James was silent for a moment. “Steve said I didn’t have to join SHIELD, that he’d figure something else out,” he said at last. “That I’d sacrificed enough for our country.”  

“Says the man who was frozen for seventy years and immediately went back to being Captain America,” Natasha said.

His laugh was hoarse and loud in the room. They both jumped at the unexpected sound of it, and then James ducked his head, the faintest hint of red in his face. “Yeah, well, Steve’s an idiot,” he said, and sounded so fond that for a second it hurt Natasha to breathe.

“You don’t have to take SHIELD’s offer,” she said. “Life will be harder if you don’t -- Fury won’t like having you in the city, for one -- but SHIELD--” She paused, trying to find the right words. “If I have to kill someone, it’s nice knowing that they deserve it.”

“No more innocents,” James said. It wasn’t a question.

Natasha answered him anyway. “SHIELD works in shades of gray, but at the end of the day, they want to stop the Rodchenkos and Orlovs of the world.”

James nodded. After a moment, when the silence had stretched on to the point of being unbearable, she rose to her feet.

His soft words stopped her with her hand poised to knock and alert the guards she was done. “Steve said you changed your name, that I’m supposed to call you Natasha now.”

Natasha stared at nothing. Then she swallowed, gathering the little moisture left in her mouth to speak. “You’re the only one who calls me Natalia,” she said. “I…don’t mind.”

She didn’t look back to see his reaction, to see if he recognized her phrasing. How much did he even remember? He remembered her betrayal, certainly, but did he remember the other, gentler moments?

After a moment, he said lightly, “Too bad about the name change. Natalia suits you.”

Natasha wanted to rest her forehead against the door, wanted, for a foolish moment, to weep. She straightened instead. “Better than your nickname suits you,” she said, using every bit of concentration to mimic his easy tone. “Bucky? _Really_? I am not calling you Bucky, James.”

James’s disused laughter filled the room again, and she turned her head so that the glass in the door wouldn’t betray her smile to him.

* * *

If Natasha allowed herself the luxury of regret, she would miss Coulson in moments like these. Jasper Sitwell was an excellent handler, but he did not understand her or Clint as Coulson had. She doubted he would understand James either.

Still, at least Sitwell had had the sense to tell her about James’s upcoming mission. He had promise.

“It’s too soon,” she said. It was only years of long practice that kept the edge from her voice. “Two months ago, he didn’t know that the Berlin Wall fell. Now you want him to go on a mission for SHIELD?”

Sitwell looked a little uncomfortable. Fury just raised an eyebrow.

“Barnes might have been released to Rogers’s custody, but he agreed to join SHIELD for a probationary period. That means he needs to actually perform some service for SHIELD. Unless you _want_ him to be handed over to the U.N. to be tried for the several dozen crimes we can link to him?”

Natasha kept her expression blank, but her rage was sharp and bitter on her tongue. “It’s too soon,” she said again. “He’s not ready.”

“Well, Agent Romanoff, I hope you’re wrong,” Fury said. He turned to Sitwell. “You’ve contacted Barnes?”

Sitwell looked uneasy, his gaze darting between Natasha and Fury. “I have,” he said slowly. “Barnes hasn’t responded to my texts. And I think Tony’s pet A.I. is screening my calls, because I haven’t been able to reach anyone at the mansion.”

Fury didn’t look surprised. “Romanoff, go with Sitwell to collect Barnes and bring him back here. And before you ask, yes, that’s an order.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and let some of her anger touch her voice. She felt only a bitter satisfaction when Fury narrowed his eye at her.

Steve met Natasha and Sitwell at the front door of the mansion with an unapologetic look on his face and a dangerous glint in his eyes. “He’s not going on the mission,” he said, folding his arms against his chest and glowering at them both.

“With all due respect, Captain, that’s not up to you,” Sitwell said, and Natasha left them to argue as she slipped around the back of the mansion and began to scale the wall.

She paused after reaching the third story and then pulled out her cell phone and dialed Stark’s house number.

“Agent Romanoff,” JARVIS said. “Since Agent Sitwell and Captain Rogers are arguing at the door, am I to assume you are here to retrieve Mister Barnes?”

If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought she detected a note of disapproval in that robotic voice. “I am here to see James, but I won’t make him go to SHIELD unless he wants to,” she said. “Do you know where he’s located?”

There was a moment of silence, and Natasha wondered if JARVIS was hesitating. Then he gave her James’s current coordinates, adding, “Although he asked to be left alone, Agent Romanoff.”

“I understand,” Natasha said. “Thank you, JARVIS.”

“You’re welcome, Agent Romanoff.”

James’s current location was one of the many bedrooms Stark had in the mansion. It wasn’t the one Stark had given to James, but that was no surprise. She found the correct room, with its drawn window shades.

She knocked on the window, their old signal, and when he didn’t respond, began removing the window from its frame.

James had raised the blinds and was standing in front of the window by the time she broke into the room. It was 16:00 and the room was dark, the bed sheets looking rumpled in the way bed sheets did when someone has been tossing and turning and doing everything except sleep.

“Most people sleep at night,” she commented, keeping her voice matter-of-fact.

James laughed, a hollow sound. “Most people sleep,” he said, confirming her suspicions, and helped her inside.

As soon as she was steady on her feet, she stepped out of his personal space. She remembered how she’d felt in her first few months post-Clint bringing her into SHIELD, how she’d wanted to kill anyone who’d gotten close to her, except maybe Clint; how she’d cherished being able to decide for herself if and when someone was going to touch her.

“Sitwell is at the front door,” she said. “Though I doubt he’s getting past Steve.”

This time James’s laugh sounded more genuine. “Probably not,” he agreed. Sunlight flooded into the room, illuminating his features and revealing the damage done by the past few months. His eyes were sunken, his face pale and swollen from lack of sunshine and sleep, and he held himself gingerly, like if he moved too quickly he’d shatter.

Natasha wanted to touch him. Her fingers ached with foolish urges, like cupping his jaw and brushing his tangled hair away from his eyes. She curled her hands into fists instead. “They want you for a mission,” she said.

The faint spark of humor vanished from his eyes. “Who do they want me to kill?”

“No one,” Natasha said, and then amended, “At least not yet.” _And I’ll kill the target for you if you need me to_ , she didn’t say, but the promise must have crept into her voice anyway, because James smiled faintly.

“Just let me take a shower,” he said, turning away.

Despite her better judgment, she reached out and touched his elbow, the one made of flesh, her fingertips light against his skin. “James,” she said.

His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t turn back. Instead he said in a cheerful, teasing voice, one that meant he was trying to distract her, “Even Stark’s guest rooms have enormous bathrooms. I bet we could swim in the tub.”

Natasha studied the tense line of his shoulders, the way his head was slightly bowed as though he was preparing for a fight. After a moment’s consideration, she nodded and squeezed his elbow. “All right,” she said. “I’ll allow it today.”

James turned to face her then, looking almost normal as he half-smiled. “Today? And what happens tomorrow?”

She stepped close to him, raised her hand to his stubble-rough chin and tugged it down so that he met her eyes. “Tomorrow I kick your ass for moping and then show you how we can wipe a bit of red from our ledger,” she informed him. Her hand moved to the back of his neck.

“Natalia,” he said. There was something uncertain and desperate in his eyes. “Natalia Romanova. I missed you.” He whispered her name like a prayer, the second sentence like a confession. His metal hand rose and touched the scar where he’d shot her, a gesture so unsure and tender that her breath caught in her throat.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” she said. “No one will take you away from me ever again,” she said, and it was an oath, sealed with a kiss as he lowered his lips to hers.

 

 

[There are many names in history

but none of them are ours.]

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: This story contains graphic depictions of murder, brain-washing, torture, and children being trained as soldiers. There are also misogynistic slurs as well as brief allusions to sexual coercion. 
> 
> If there is anything else you feel should be warned for, please let me know. I will gladly add onto this warning list if anyone feels there are potential triggers I've missed.
> 
> Again, in case you missed it in the beginning notes, please check out [**this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name [fanart]**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/497086) (0 words) by inkspire. The artwork is lovely and deserves kudos of its own!
> 
> On Tumblr, the amazing vyallalala is doing a series of artwork related to this story. Check them out here: [**The Bullet Project**](http://vylla-art.tumblr.com/tagged/Bullet-Project)
> 
> For those interested, I also created a fanmix for this story: [**we shift each other’s bodies to accept the bullet**](http://cinaed.tumblr.com/post/32566366032/we-shift-each-others-bodies-to-accept-the-bullet).


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